Kevin Blankespoor

Papers

Total Citations

1,773

H-Index

About

Kevin Blankespoor is a robotics researcher whose work has significantly advanced the field of legged locomotion and autonomous navigation for quadruped robots. He is best known for his foundational contributions to the development of BigDog, Boston Dynamics' groundbreaking four-legged robot designed to traverse challenging real-world terrain. His 2008 paper "BigDog, the Rough-Terrain Quadruped Robot" has become a landmark publication in the field, accumulating over 1,477 citations and establishing BigDog as one of the most capable and influential legged robots ever built. Blankespoor further expanded BigDog's capabilities by equipping it with laser scanners and stereo vision systems to enable fully autonomous navigation in unstructured environments, as detailed in his 2010 work that has garnered over 274 citations. His earlier 2006 paper helped lay the conceptual groundwork for understanding the practical challenges of legged mobility. Across his research, Blankespoor has consistently pushed the boundaries of what mobile robots can achieve outside controlled laboratory settings, making him a pivotal figure in the transition of legged robotics from theoretical exploration to real-world deployment.