Papers
5
Total Citations
188
H-Index
5
About
Nikhilesh Alatur is a leading roboticist whose work pushes the boundaries of autonomous navigation in the most extreme and perceptually-challenging environments on Earth. His primary research areas center on field robotics, legged locomotion, and autonomous exploration, with a particular focus on enabling robots to operate reliably where GPS and communications fail. Alatur’s most significant contributions stem from his integral role on TEAM CoSTAR in the DARPA Subterranean Challenge. He was a key architect of the NeBula autonomy solution, which secured victory in Phase II of the competition, as detailed in his highly-cited 2021 and 2022 papers (105 and 51 citations, respectively). His pioneering work on the Boston Dynamics Spot robot, described in “Autonomous Spot” (14 citations), was among the first to demonstrate long-range, large-scale autonomous exploration using legged platforms. Additionally, Alatur has advanced real-time obstacle avoidance for aerial vehicles, developing a novel method using Riemannian Motion Policies that operates at kHz rates. His research is not just academic; it directly enables robots to navigate collapsed tunnels, dark caves, and rugged off-road terrain, setting new standards for resilient autonomy in the real world.
Research Focus
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