Wei‐Wen Kao

University of California, Berkeley, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology

Papers

Total Citations

179

H-Index

About

Wei-Wen Kao is a pioneering figure in robotics control theory, whose work has fundamentally shaped how robotic manipulators achieve precision in repetitive tasks. His primary research areas span adaptive control, repetitive control, and sensor-integrated navigation systems. Kao’s most significant contribution is his landmark 1990 paper, “A Unified Approach to the Design of Adaptive and Repetitive Controllers for Robotic Manipulators,” which has garnered 143 citations. In this work, he introduced a groundbreaking Lyapunov-based framework that exploits the passivity properties of manipulator dynamics, enabling controllers that guarantee asymptotic trajectory tracking—a solution that elegantly unified two previously separate control paradigms. This foundational approach remains influential in modern robotics. Kao also demonstrated the practical power of repetitive control in his 1989 study on SCARA manipulators, where he combined fixed PD action with repetitive feed-forward compensation to dramatically improve tracking performance for periodic motions. Later, he ventured into mobile robotics, developing an innovative smartphone-based indoor navigation system (2013) that fuses visual SLAM with Bluetooth-connected wheel odometry, achieving 24 citations for its practical integration of consumer hardware. Kao’s work bridges rigorous control theory with real-world robotic applications, leaving a lasting impact on both academic research and engineering practice.