Tonislav Ivanov

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology

Papers

Total Citations

H-Index

About

Tonislav Ivanov’s research lies at the intersection of autonomous robotics and human-robot interaction, with a focus on perception systems that enable robots to navigate and operate safely in complex, unconstrained environments. His most cited work, “Evaluating the performance of unmanned ground vehicle water detection” (2010, 9 citations), contributed to the Robotics Collaborative Technology Alliances (RCTA) program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). In this study, Ivanov developed and tested water detection algorithms critical for UGV autonomous navigation over cross-country terrain—a fundamental safety requirement for off-road autonomy. His second notable paper, “Head pose estimation using multilinear subspace analysis for robot human awareness” (2009, 2 citations), addresses a key challenge in human-robot interaction: enabling mobile robots to perceive human awareness by estimating head pose and gaze direction. This work helps robots deduce which people are aware of their presence, allowing for more natural and predictive social navigation. Though his citation counts are modest, Ivanov’s contributions are foundational to two distinct pillars of field robotics—environmental perception and social awareness—demonstrating versatility and practical impact in real-world autonomous systems.