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About

M. Iwasaki is a pioneering robotics researcher whose career has been defined by the development of autonomous underwater walking robots for marine inspection and construction applications. Best known for leading the creation of "AQUAROBOT," a six-legged aquatic walking robot, Iwasaki made foundational contributions to the field of underwater robotics at a time when remotely operated systems for subsea inspection were still in their infancy. Beginning with the initial experimental model presented at the 1988 International Symposium on Automation and Robotics in Construction (ISARC), Iwasaki and collaborators systematically advanced the technology through successive stages — from laboratory development (27 citations) and field testing (18 citations) to practical deployment in real-world port construction environments. A particularly notable contribution was demonstrating AQUAROBOT's capability for seabottom roughness measurement of rubble mound foundations in deep-water areas where human divers cannot safely operate (21 citations), offering a robust alternative unaffected by long-period ocean waves. With a body of work accumulating nearly 90 citations across closely related studies, Iwasaki's research has had a lasting influence on marine engineering and construction robotics, establishing early benchmarks for legged robots operating in challenging aquatic environments.