Tomoki Watabe

Papers

Total Citations

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About

Tomoki Watabe is a robotics researcher whose work bridges the gap between humanoid locomotion and intuitive human-robot interaction. His research focuses on two key areas: enabling robots to navigate complex, unstructured environments through versatile locomotion, and enhancing teleoperation via shared control. Watabe’s most influential work, “Dynamic gait transition between bipedal and quadrupedal locomotion” (28 citations), addresses a critical challenge for disaster-response robots—the ability to seamlessly switch between walking on two legs and crawling on four limbs to traverse cluttered terrain. This contribution expands the functional repertoire of humanoid robots beyond traditional bipedalism. In a second highly cited paper (19 citations), Watabe tackles intention estimation for shared-control object manipulation, using natural gaze and motion features to predict a user’s goal and assist with teleoperated tasks. This work improves the responsiveness and intuitiveness of human-robot collaboration. Additionally, his research on multi-contact motion planning, which incorporates hands, knees, and other body parts for stability on uneven ground, addresses the computational bottleneck of planning speed. Through these contributions, Watabe is advancing the practicality of robots in real-world, high-stakes environments.