Min Sung Ahn

About

Min Sung Ahn is a robotics researcher whose work spans legged locomotion, robot perception, and task planning, with a particular focus on developing capable autonomous systems for real-world applications. He is perhaps best known for his contributions to quadruped and biped robot design, most notably the ALPHRED platform — a multi-modal quadruped engineered for package delivery — which has garnered 91 citations and stands as a landmark in functional legged robotics. His 2019 noise-modeling analysis of the Intel RealSense D435 (61 citations) has become a widely referenced resource for mobile robotics researchers seeking affordable alternatives to LIDAR-based sensing. Ahn's breadth is evident across his portfolio: he contributed to Team THOR's entry in the prestigious 2015 DARPA Robotics Challenge Finals, helped lead a RoboCup Humanoid League championship team, and pioneered unconventional platforms like BALLU, a buoyancy-assisted biped prioritizing safety and affordability. His optimization-driven work on motion planning and dual-arm cooking task scheduling further demonstrates his range, blending mixed-integer programming with practical manipulation challenges. Collectively, his research reflects a consistent drive to bridge theoretical rigor with deployable, innovative robotic systems that perform meaningfully outside the laboratory.

Research Focus

Key Achievements

Top Papers

1. 1
   ALPHRED: A Multi-Modal Operations Quadruped Robot for Package Delivery Applications

   91 citations · 2020
2. 2
   Analysis and Noise Modeling of the Intel RealSense D435 for Mobile Robots

   61 citations · 2019
3. 3
   A Proprioceptive, Force-Controlled, Non-Anthropomorphic Biped for Dynamic Locomotion

   21 citations · 2018
4. 4
   An Online Task-Planning Framework Using Mixed Integer Programming for Multiple Cooking Tasks Using a Dual-Arm Robot

   16 citations · 2022
5. 5
   Team THOR's Entry in the DARPA Robotics Challenge Finals 2015

   15 citations · 2016
6. 6
   Stable, Autonomous, Unknown Terrain Locomotion for Quadrupeds Based on Visual Feedback and Mixed-Integer Convex Optimization

   15 citations · 2018
7. 7
   BALLU2: A Safe and Affordable Buoyancy Assisted Biped

   8 citations · 2021
8. 8
   Task Planning with Mixed-Integer Programming for Multiple Cooking Task Using dual-arm Robot

   7 citations · 2020
9. 9
   RoboCup 2015 Humanoid AdultSize League Winner

   6 citations · 2015
10. 10
    Designing Multi-Stage Coupled Convex Programming with Data-Driven McCormick Envelope Relaxations for Motion Planning

    5 citations · 2021

Key Collaborators

Contact & Links