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About

Navinda Kottege is a leading robotics researcher whose work spans legged robot locomotion, autonomous navigation, and multi-robot systems for extreme environments. Based at CSIRO Data61 in Australia, Kottege has made foundational contributions to how robots perceive, adapt to, and traverse challenging terrain — from unstructured outdoor surfaces to dangerous subterranean spaces. His early research established novel approaches to legged robot control, including acoustics-based terrain classification (59 citations), energetics-informed gait transitions (53 citations), and proprioceptive sensing for hexapod navigation (59 citations). These works collectively advanced the field of adaptive locomotion, enabling robots like the Weaver hexapod (77 citations) to operate intelligently across real-world terrain without human guidance. His subsequent work on whole-body planning in confined spaces (63 citations) pushed the boundaries of computational locomotion planning. Kottege's most impactful contributions came through the DARPA Subterranean Challenge, where Team CSIRO Data61's heterogeneous robot fleet demonstrated world-class autonomous exploration capabilities (97 citations). His survey on SLAM in extreme environments (176 citations) has since become a landmark reference for the field. With over 650 cumulative citations, Kottege's research is shaping the future of robots operating where humans cannot safely venture.