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About

Petri Virekoski is a robotics researcher whose work centers on mobile robotics, human-robot interaction, and adaptive locomotion systems. His career spans foundational contributions to telepresence robotics and the development of intelligent wheel-legged robotic platforms capable of navigating complex real-world environments. Virekoski's early work introduced the "Moving Eye," a ball-shaped mobile robot enabling interactive telepresence over the internet — a forward-thinking concept that earned 11 citations and anticipated modern remote presence technologies. His involvement with the WorkPartner robot project, showcased at the ISR 2004 Exhibition, demonstrated his commitment to advancing practical human-robot collaboration in real-world settings. A significant thread of his research focuses on terrain-adaptive locomotion, where he developed sense-by-touch methods for mobile robots to measure vertical, horizontal, and rotational strain forces acting on wheels or feet. This work enabled robots to dynamically assess terrain quality during operation, informing logic-based locomotion mode control and actuator-driven force measurement strategies. These contributions represent meaningful advances in autonomous robot mobility across unstructured environments. Though his citation counts are modest, Virekoski's research addresses technically demanding and practically relevant challenges at the intersection of robotic sensing, locomotion intelligence, and human-machine interaction.