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About

Ryosuke Morita is a roboticist whose research centers on minimalistic actuation and intelligent mechanical design for mobile and legged robots. His core contributions lie in developing locomotion systems that achieve complex motion with fewer actuators, dramatically simplifying control and reducing cost. His most influential work, "Design and adaptive balance control of a biped robot with fewer actuators for slope walking" (30 citations), demonstrates how clever mechanical design can enable a biped to maintain balance on uneven terrain using only a fraction of the motors typically required. Morita further extends this philosophy to wheeled platforms, pioneering a one-actuator mobile robot that uses a torque limiter for steering and propulsion (14 citations), and an autonomous robot propelled by a single motor with passive wheels (7 citations). His more recent work bridges simulation and reality, creating point cloud maps from factory CAD drawings for LiDAR-based localization (5 citations). Notably, his research on a single-actuator snakeboard robot—inspired by the two-wheeled skateboard—introduces a novel mechanism that generates curving motion from just one input, challenging conventional multi-actuator paradigms. Through this body of work, Morita is redefining what is possible with minimal hardware, offering elegant, efficient solutions for real-world robotics.