Papers
30
Total Citations
335
H-Index
11
About
Martin F. Stoelen is a pioneering roboticist whose work sits at the intersection of soft robotics, agricultural automation, and socially assistive technology. His major contributions include developing the GummiArm, a variable-stiffness, open-source robot arm designed for safe physical interaction and embodied AI research—a project that has garnered 11 citations and enabled low-cost replication in labs worldwide. In agricultural robotics, Stoelen has advanced selective harvesting with proof-of-concept platforms for sugar snap peas and soft manipulators for tomatoes, addressing labor-intensive tasks that represent over 50% of producer costs. His 2018 paper on agricultural robotics (36 citations) frames robotics as a solution to global food chain pressures from population growth and climate change. Notably, Stoelen has also pioneered socially assistive robotics for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), creating an open-source soft robot that improves emotion recognition and communication—work cited 36 times and extended by a 2023 study on robot appearance and emotion recognition (11 citations). His foundational research on Fitts’ law for combined rotational and translational movements (44 citations) underpins much of his human-robot interaction work. With over 230 total citations across his top papers, Stoelen’s research is characterized by its practical impact, open-source philosophy, and focus on real-world challenges from therapy to farming.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
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- 3Agricultural Robotics: The Future of Robotic Agriculture36 citations · 2018
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- 6Soft manipulator robot for selective tomato harvesting19 citations · 2019
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