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About

Ryota Mori is a robotics researcher whose work centers on autonomous mobile robotics, visual servoing, and the computational modeling of human motor strategies. His most significant contributions lie in the development of innovative ball-tracking and catching frameworks for mobile robots, with a particular focus on bridging insights from experimental psychology and robotic engineering. Mori is best known for pioneering the GAG (Gaining Angle of Gaze) strategy, introduced in 2003 and extended in subsequent years, which enables a mobile robot to track and intercept a three-dimensional flying target using only a single camera and angular gaze information — eliminating the need for full 3D positional data. This approach demonstrated greater robustness and a wider catchable region than previously established strategies, earning the work a combined 32 citations across its core publications. Complementing this, Mori critically examined the well-known LOT (Linear Optical Trajectory) hypothesis from human behavior science, validating and interrogating it through autonomous robotic experimentation. His later research extended these foundations to ball-lifting tasks modeled on real sports skills such as tennis and soccer, exploring how robots might replicate and illuminate human skill acquisition processes. Mori's work represents a compelling integration of cognitive science, computer vision, and robotics, offering meaningful contributions to both fields.