2026 Joel W. Burdick: Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Researcher – H-Index, Publications & Awards

Discipline name	D-Index	World Ranking	Current World Ranking	National Ranking	Current National Ranking	Publications	Citations
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering	77	257	233	125	105	336	19011

Overview

Joel W. Burdick is affiliated with the California Institute of Technology in the United States. Their research spans multiple areas within engineering and computer science, focusing primarily on control and systems engineering as well as artificial intelligence.

Their scholarly output includes publications across major venues such as:

arXiv (Cornell University)
IEEE Control Systems Letters
Field Robotics
IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters
IEEE Transactions on Field Robotics

Their main fields of study are:

Engineering
Computer Science

With respect to subfields, their work emphasizes:

Control and Systems Engineering
Artificial Intelligence
Biomedical Engineering
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Aerospace Engineering

The core topics addressed in their research include:

Advanced Control Systems Optimization
Robotic Path Planning Algorithms
Reinforcement Learning in Robotics
Robotics and Sensor-Based Localization
Fault Detection and Control Systems
Robotic Locomotion and Control
Planetary Science and Exploration

Frequent collaborators in their research are:

Anushri Dixit
Skylar X. Wei
Ali-akbar Agha-mohammadi
Aaron D. Ames
Kyohei Otsu

Notable publications by Joel W. Burdick include:

NeBula: Quest for Robotic Autonomy in Challenging Environments; TEAM CoSTAR at the DARPA Subterranean Challenge, 2021, arXiv (Cornell University)
NeBula: TEAM CoSTAR's Robotic Autonomy Solution that Won Phase II of DARPA Subterranean Challenge, 2022, Field Robotics
PLGRIM: Hierarchical Value Learning for Large-scale Exploration in Unknown Environments, 2021, Proceedings of the International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling
EELS: Autonomous snake-like robot with task and motion planning capabilities for ice world exploration, 2024, Science Robotics
Data-Driven Safety-Critical Control: Synthesizing Control Barrier Functions With Koopman Operators, 2020, IEEE Control Systems Letters

Best Publications

A modal approach to hyper-redundant manipulator kinematics

G.S. Chirikjian;J.W. Burdick

729
Citations
End-to-End Safe Reinforcement Learning through Barrier Functions for Safety-Critical Continuous Control Tasks

Richard Cheng;Gábor Orosz;Richard M. Murray;Joel W. Burdick

532
Citations
The kinematics of hyper-redundant robot locomotion

G.S. Chirikjian;J.W. Burdick

509
Citations
Implications of Assist-As-Needed Robotic Step Training after a Complete Spinal Cord Injury on Intrinsic Strategies of Motor Learning

Lance L. Cai;Andy J. Fong;Chad K. Otoshi;Yongqiang Liang

477
Citations
Sensor-Based Exploration: The Hierarchical Generalized Voronoi Graph

Howie Choset;Joel W. Burdick

437
Citations
The Geometric Mechanics of Undulatory Robotic Locomotion

Jim Ostrowski;Joel W. Burdick

386
Citations
Robot Motion Planning in Dynamic, Uncertain Environments

Noel E. Du Toit;J. W. Burdick

364
Citations
Kinematically optimal hyper-redundant manipulator configurations

G.S. Chirikjian;J.W. Burdick

343
Citations
On the inverse kinematics of redundant manipulators: characterization of the self-motion manifolds

J.W. Burdick

342
Citations
Weighted line fitting algorithms for mobile robot map building and efficient data representation

S.T. Pfister;S.I. Roumeliotis;J.W. Burdick

302
Citations
Artificial potential functions for highway driving with collision avoidance

M.T. Wolf;J.W. Burdick

279
Citations
Mobility of bodies in contact. I. A new 2/sup nd/ order mobility index for multiple-finger grasps

E. Rimon;J.W. Burdick

268
Citations
Nonholonomic mechanics and locomotion: the snakeboard example

J. Ostrowski;A. Lewis;R. Murray;J. Burdick

266
Citations
An obstacle avoidance algorithm for hyper-redundant manipulators

G.S. Chirikjian;J.W. Burdick

255
Citations
The Development of a Robotic Endoscope

A. Brett Slatkin;Joel W. Burdick;Warren Grundfest

254
Citations
Minimalist Jumping Robots for Celestial Exploration

Joel Burdick;Paolo Fiorini

239
Citations
Sensor-Based Exploration: Incremental Construction of the Hierarchical Generalized Voronoi Graph:

Howie Choset;Sean Walker;Kunnayut Eiamsa-Ard;Joel W. Burdick

237
Citations
Finding antipodal point grasps on irregularly shaped objects

I-Ming Chen;J.W. Burdick

234
Citations
Nonlinear control methods for planar carangiform robot fish locomotion

K.A. Morgansen;V. Duidam;R.J. Mason;J.W. Burdick

219
Citations
Stochastic cloning: a generalized framework for processing relative state measurements

S.I. Roumeliotis;J.W. Burdick

207
Citations
A 'sidewinding' locomotion gait for hyper-redundant robots

Joel W. Burdick;Jim Radford;Gregory S. Chirikjian

123
Citations

Frequent Co-Authors

Richard M. Murray California Institute of Technology

Richard A. Andersen California Institute of Technology

Gregory S. Chirikjian University of Delaware

Yu-Chong Tai California Institute of Technology

Yisong Yue California Institute of Technology

Howie Choset Carnegie Mellon University

Roland R. Roy University of California, Los Angeles

James Ostrowski Blue River Technology

Qiao Lin Columbia University

Andreas Krause ETH Zurich

External Links

Personal website of Joel W. Burdick

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