Othman Lakhal

About

Othman Lakhal is a robotics and automation researcher whose work sits at the intersection of continuum robotics, adaptive control, and additive manufacturing. He is best known for his extensive contributions to modeling and controlling biologically inspired soft and continuum manipulators — robots that mimic the fluid motion of trunks, tentacles, and snakes. His 2015 paper on adaptive neural network control of the Compact Bionic Handling Arm (CBHA), which has garnered over 112 citations, established him as a leading voice in intelligent control strategies for this notoriously complex class of robots. Alongside this, his hybrid kinematic modeling approach (65 citations) demonstrated innovative methods for real-time inverse kinematics, blending quantitative and learning-based techniques. Lakhal has further advanced the field through metaheuristic and finite element-based approaches to kinematic modeling, consistently pushing the boundaries of accuracy and computational efficiency. More recently, he has extended his expertise into robotized additive manufacturing for architectural construction, exploring how hyper-redundant robots can enable complex geometric fabrication. With a body of work spanning adaptive algorithms, path planning, and obstacle avoidance for mobile soft manipulators, Lakhal's research has meaningfully shaped both theoretical foundations and practical applications of next-generation robotic systems.

Research Focus

Key Achievements

Top Papers

1. 1
   Adaptive Neural Network Control of a Compact Bionic Handling Arm

   112 citations · 2015
2. 2
   Hybrid Approach for Modeling and Solving of Kinematics of a Compact Bionic Handling Assistant Manipulator

   65 citations · 2015
3. 3
   Adaptive Algorithms for Performance Improvement of a Class of Continuum Manipulators

   26 citations · 2017
4. 4
   A metaheuristic approach to solve inverse kinematics of continuum manipulators

   24 citations · 2017
5. 5
   Robotized Additive Manufacturing of Funicular Architectural Geometries Based on Building Materials

   24 citations · 2020
6. 6
   Inverse Kinematic modeling of a class of continuum bionic handling arm

   23 citations · 2014
7. 7
   Path Planning and Control of Mobile Soft Manipulators with Obstacle Avoidance

   22 citations · 2020
8. 8
   Performances evaluation of inverse kinematic models of a compact bionic handling assistant

   22 citations · 2017
9. 9
   Domain decomposition approach for FEM quasistatic modeling and control of Continuum Robots with rigid vertebras

   17 citations · 2015
10. 10
    Control of a Hyper-Redundant Robot for Quality Inspection in Additive Manufacturing for Construction

    15 citations · 2019

Key Collaborators

Contact & Links