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About

Shigeyasu Kawaji is a robotics and control systems researcher whose work spans two interconnected domains: biped locomotion control and human-robot interaction safety. His foundational contributions to biped robotics, beginning in the mid-1990s, explored the role of locomotion rhythm in achieving stable walking, culminating in compliance-based control strategies and kinematic analyses of complex motions such as object lifting — work that attracted his most-cited publications and helped shape modern humanoid robot design. Perhaps his most distinctive research agenda concerns the computational modeling of human pain perception for safer human-robot coexistence. Recognizing that factory-style physical separation of robots from humans is impractical in social environments, Kawaji pioneered the use of artificial neural networks to emulate superficial pain responses, developing multi-layered sensor models that replicate the fast and slow pain signals characteristic of human skin. This line of inquiry — spanning experimental validation on the upper limb to full robot control applications — reflects a broader commitment to embedding human sensory and emotional considerations into robotic systems. His work on social intelligence further underscores this vision of robots capable of natural, contextually appropriate interaction. Collectively garnering over 80 citations, Kawaji's research offers an enduring framework for safe, human-centered robotics.