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About

Masaki Ogino is a pioneering robotics researcher whose work spans humanoid locomotion, social robotics, and embodied cognition. Drawing from developmental psychology and neuroscience, Ogino has made significant contributions to understanding how robots can develop human-like capabilities through experience and interaction. His most influential work explores two interconnected themes: robot social intelligence and physical embodiment. In the realm of social robotics, Ogino has investigated how robots can develop empathetic communication by mapping facial expressions to emotional states inspired by infant-caregiver dynamics, and has modeled early communicative behaviors such as peekaboo interactions using reward-based learning frameworks. His imitation-based interaction learning research (35 citations) further demonstrates how robots can acquire social rules through visuo-motor experience. On the physical side, Ogino has contributed groundbreaking research into body representation, showing how robots can construct self-models by integrating tactile, motor, and visual information — work that has accumulated nearly 50 citations each. His research on humanoid walking, including energy-efficient ballistic locomotion and rough-terrain stability, demonstrates a sophisticated understanding of biomechanical control. More recently, Ogino has expanded into human-robot teleoperation, examining haptic feedback modalities for remote manipulation. With a career spanning foundational developmental robotics to applied human-machine interaction, his interdisciplinary approach continues to shape how intelligent robots perceive, move, and communicate.