Thomas Schamm
Papers
7
Total Citations
282
H-Index
5
About
Thomas Schamm is a robotics researcher whose work spans motion planning, autonomous systems, and human-robot interaction. He is perhaps best known for his 2015 paper introducing **RRT\*-Connect**, a bidirectional, asymptotically optimal motion planning algorithm that elegantly merges the speed of RRT-Connect with the optimality guarantees of RRT\*, outperforming both predecessor algorithms. This work has garnered over 200 citations, establishing it as a notable contribution to the path planning literature. Beyond motion planning, Schamm has made meaningful contributions to shared autonomy for mobile robot teleoperation, developing systems that recognize operator intent as contextual tasks to reduce cognitive burden in hazardous environments such as search-and-rescue scenarios. His work in this area includes online and incremental learning approaches that adapt in real time to operator behavior. He also contributed to practical autonomous driving applications, notably a multi-story autonomous valet parking system integrating electric vehicle charging. Earlier in his career, Schamm worked on robust 3D scan segmentation for robots operating in radiation-contaminated environments. Together, his research portfolio reflects a consistent focus on making autonomous and semi-autonomous robotic systems more efficient, adaptive, and practically deployable in challenging real-world settings.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
- 1RRT*-Connect: Faster, asymptotically optimal motion planning201 citations · 2015
- 2Autonomous multi-story navigation for valet parking29 citations · 2016
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