Ludovic Righetti leads the Movement Generation and Control group at the Max-Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (Tübingen, Germany) since September 2012. Before, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Computational Learning and Motor Control Lab (University of Southern California) between March 2009 and August 2012 and a postdoctoral fellow at the Max-Planck Institute for Intelligent System from Sept. 2011 to Aug. 2012. He studied at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne where he received a Diploma in Computer Sciences in 2004 and a Doctorate in Science in Nov. 2008. His doctoral thesis (made under the supervision of Prof. Auke Ijspeert) was awarded the 2010 Georges Giralt PhD Award given by the European Robotics Research Network for the best robotics thesis in Europe. His research focuses on the generation and control of movements for autonomous robots, with a special emphasis on legged locomotion and manipulation.
For more information on the Movement Generation and Control group, please check this site
A complete list of my publications (including publications prior joining MPI-IS) are available here or on Google Scholar
We have developed algorithms which enable an autonomous manipulation system to grasp a wide range of objects and to perform a certain number of manipulation tasks, such as drilling, using a stapler, unlocking a door with a key or changing a tire \cite{Righetti_AR_2013}. More generally, we are interested in providing complete integra...
Ludovic Righetti Mrinal Kalakrishnan Peter Pastor Manuel Wüthrich Alexander Herzog Jeannette Bohg Stefan Schaal
Tuning and designing robotic behavior by combining elementary objective terms is a tedious task which generally consists of finding proper representations for each new skill. Inverse Optimal Control (IOC) allows, by specifying a set of basis functions (or features), to learn the right association of objective terms defining a policy...
Jim Mainprice Mrinal Kalakrishnan Peter Pastor Nathan Ratliff Ludovic Righetti Stefan Schaal Andreas Doerr
Legged robots are expected to locomote autonomously in an uncertain and potentially dynamically changing environment. Active interaction with contacts becomes inevitable to move and apply forces in a goal directed way and withstand unpredicted changes in the environment. Therefore, we need to design algorithms that exploit interacti...
Ludovic Righetti Alexander Herzog Nick Rotella Sean Mason Felix Grimminger Stefan Schaal
Motion generation is increasingly formalized as a large scale optimization over future outcomes of actions. For high dimensional manipulation platforms, this optimization is computationally so difficult that for a long time traditional approaches focused primarily on feasibility of the solution rather than even local optimality. Rec...
Nathan Ratliff Ludovic Righetti Jim Mainprice Jeannette Bohg Stefan Schaal
Planning dynamic behaviors for legged robots is a challenging task because the robot is subject to strong dynamic constraints due to its floating base (i.e. it can fall). It needs to take into account intermittent contacts with the environment and apply contact forces in order to move.
In this project, we address the probl...
Ludovic Righetti Alexander Herzog Nick Rotella Sean Mason Felix Grimminger John Rebula Brahayam Ponton Stefan Schaal
When developing controllers for legged robots, one assumes that important quantities like the Center of Mass of the robot (CoM), its position and orientation in space or its joint positions and velocities are know accurately to be used in feedback laws. While the estimation of such quantities is trivial in simulation, it becomes a s...
Nick Rotella Sean Mason Alexander Herzog Ludovic Righetti Stefan Schaal
Autonomous robotic grasping is one of the pre-requisites for personal robots to become useful when assisting humans in households. Seamlessly easy for humans, it still remains a very challenging task for robots. The key problem of robotic grasping is to automatically choose an appropriate grasp configuration given an object as perce...
Alexander Herzog Peter Pastor Mrinal Kalakrishnan Ludovic Righetti Jeannette Bohg Stefan Schaal
An important part of our research is concerned with the problem of movement representations. The way motion and contacts are represented is crucial to derive efficient planning and control algorithms, for example by significantly simplifying the underlying optimization problems. The way sensory information can be integrated to gen...
Ludovic Righetti Stefan Schaal Peter Pastor Mrinal Kalakrishnan
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Ponton, B., Herzog, A., Prete, A. D., Schaal, S., Righetti, L.
On Time Optimization of Centroidal Momentum Dynamics
In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 2018, IEEE, International Conference on Robotics and Automation, May 2018 (inproceedings)
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The Role of Measurement Uncertainty in Optimal Control for Contact Interactions
Workshop on the Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics, pages: 22, November 2016 (conference)
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Herzog, A., Rotella, N., Mason, S., Grimminger, F., Schaal, S., Righetti, L.
Momentum Control with Hierarchical Inverse Dynamics on a Torque-Controlled Humanoid
Autonomous Robots, 40(3):473-491, March 2016 (article)
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Ponton, B., Herzog, A., Schaal, S., Righetti, L.
A Convex Model of Humanoid Momentum Dynamics for Multi-Contact Motion Generation
Proceedings of the 2016 IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots, 2016 (conference)
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Khadiv, M., Kleff, S., Herzog, A., Moosavian, S., Schaal, S., Righetti, L.
Stepping stabilization using a combination of DCM tracking and step adjustment
4th RSI International Conference on Robotics and Mechatronics, 2016 (conference)
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Herzog, A., Schaal, S., Righetti, L.
Structured contact force optimization for kino-dynamic motion generation
In International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) 2016, pages: 2703-2710, IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, 2016 (inproceedings)
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Khadiv, M., Herzog, A., Moosavian, S., Righetti, L.
Step Timing Adjustment: A Step Toward Generating Robust Gaits
Proceedings of the 2016 IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots, 2016 (conference)
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Mason, S., rotella, N., Schaal, S., Righetti, L.
Balancing and Walking Using Full Dynamics LQR Control with Contact Constraints
Proceedings of the 2016 IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots, 2016 (conference)
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Herzog, A., Rotella, N., Schaal, S., Righetti, L.
Trajectory generation for multi-contact momentum-control
In IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots (Humanoids), November 2015 (inproceedings)
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Righetti, L., Nylen, A., Rosander, K., Ijspeert, A.
Kinematic and gait similarities between crawling human infants and other quadruped mammals
Frontiers in Neurology, 6(17), Febuary 2015 (article)
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Rotella, N., Herzog, A., Schaal, S., Righetti, L.
Momentum Estimation, Planning and Control for Force-Centric Bipedal Locomotion
In Proceedings of Dynamic Walking, 2015 (inproceedings)
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Herzog, A., Rotella, N., Mason, S., Grimminger, F., Schaal, S., Righetti, L.
Multi-Contact Interaction with Hierarchical Inverse Dynamics and Momentum Trajectory Generation
In Proceedings of Dynamic Walking, 2015 (inproceedings)
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Huber, M. E., Chiovetto, E., Righetti, L., Schaal, S., Giese, M., Sternad, D.
From Humans to Robots and Back: Role of Arm Movement in Medio-lateral Balance Control
In Proceedings of Dynamic Walking, 2015 (inproceedings)
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Mason, S., Schaal, S., Righetti, L.
Full Dynamics LQR Control for Bipedal Walking
Proceedings of Dynamic Walking, 2015 (conference)
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Rotella, N., Herzog, A., Schaal, S., Righetti, L.
Humanoid Momentum Estimation Using Sensed Contact Wrenches
Proceedings of the 2015 IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots, 2015 (conference)
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Rebula, J., Righetti, L., Schaal, S.
Wrong and Useful: Metrics to Assess Simple Walking Models
In Proceedings of Dynamic Walking, 2015 (inproceedings)
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Toussaint, M., Ratliff, N., Bohg, J., Righetti, L., Englert, P., Schaal, S.
Dual Execution of Optimized Contact Interaction Trajectories
In Proceedings of the International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, Chicago, IL, October 2014 (inproceedings)
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Herzog, A., Righetti, L., Grimminger, F., Pastor, P., Schaal, S.
Balancing experiments on a torque-controlled humanoid with hierarchical inverse dynamics
Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robotics Systems, Chicago, IL, September 2014 (conference)
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Righetti, L., Kalakrishnan, M., Pastor, P., Binney, J., Kelly, J., Voorhies, R. C., Sukhatme, G. S., Schaal, S.
An autonomous manipulation system based on force control and optimization
Autonomous Robots, 36(1-2):11-30, Springer US, Febuary 2014, clmc (article)
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Herzog, A., Pastor, P., Kalakrishnan, M., Righetti, L., Bohg, J., Asfour, T., Schaal, S.
Learning of Grasp Selection based on Shape-Templates
Autonomous Robots, 36(1-2):51-65, Springer US, January 2014 (article)
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Herzog, A., Righetti, L., Grimminger, F., Schaal, S.
Experiments with Hierarchical Inverse Dynamics Controllers on a Torque Controlled Humanoid
In Proceedings of Dynamic Walking, Zürich, Switzerland, 2014, clmc (inproceedings)
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Mason, S., Righetti, L., Schaal, S.
Full Dynamics LQR Control of a Humanoid Robot: An Experimental Study on Balancing and Squatting
In 14th IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots (Humanoids), 2014 (inproceedings)
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Mason, S., Righetti, L., Schaal, S.
Towards Full System Linear Quadratic Regulators for Humanoid Control
In Proceedings of Dynamic Walking, Zurich, Switzerland, 2014, clmc (inproceedings)
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Rotella, N., Bloesch, M., Righetti, L., Schaal, S.
State Estimation for a Humanoid Robot
In Proceedings of the 2014 IEEE/RSJ Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, pages: 952-958, Chicago, IL, 2014 (inproceedings)
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Rotella, N., Bloesch, M., Righetti, L., Schaal, S.
State Estimation for Walking Humanoids on Unknown Terrain
In Proceedings of Dynamic Walking, Zürich, Switzerland, 2014, clmc (inproceedings)
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Gregg, R., Righetti, L.
Controlled Reduction with Unactuated Cyclic Variables: Application to 3D Bipedal Walking with Passive Yaw Rotation
IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, 58(10):2679-2685, October 2013 (article)
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Hutter, M., Bloesch, M., Buchli, J., Semini, C., Bazeille, S., Righetti, L., Bohg, J.
AGILITY – Dynamic Full Body Locomotion and Manipulation with Autonomous Legged Robots
In IEEE International Symposium on Safety, Security, and Rescue Robotics, pages: 1-4, Linköping, 2013 (inproceedings)
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Kalakrishnan, M., Herzog, A., Righetti, L., Schaal, S.
Markov Random Fields for Stochastic Trajectory Optimization and Learning with Constraints
In Workshop: Hierarchical and Structured Learning for Robotics, RSS 2013, pages: 1-1, Berlin, 2013 (inproceedings)
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Righetti, L., Buchli, J., Mistry, M., Kalakrishnan, M., Schaal, S.
Optimal distribution of contact forces with inverse dynamics control
The International Journal of Robotics Research, 32(3):280-298, 2013, clmc (article)
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Pastor, P., Kalakrishnan, M., Binney, J., Kelly, J., Righetti, L., Sukhatme, G., Schaal, S.
Learning Task Error Models for Manipulation
In IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2013 (inproceedings)
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Righetti, L., Buchli, J., Mistry, M., Kalakrishnan, M., Schaal, S.
Using Torque Redundancy to Optimize Contact Forces in Legged Robots
In Redundancy in Robot Manipulators and Multi-Robot Systems, pages: 35-51, (Editors: Dejan Milutinović and Jacob Rosen), Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, 2013, clmc (inbook)
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Kalakrishnan, M., Pastor, P., Righetti, L., Schaal, S.
Learning Objective Functions for Manipulation
In IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2013, clmc (inproceedings)
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Herzog, A., Pastor, P., Kalakrishnan, M., Righetti, L., Asfour, T., Schaal, S.
Template-based learning of grasp selection
In IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), pages: 2379-2384, May 2012 (inproceedings)
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Kalakrishnan, M., Righetti, L., Pastor, P., Schaal, S.
Learning Force Control Policies for Compliant Robotic Manipulation
In International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML), 2012, clmc (inproceedings)
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Pastor, P., Kalakrishnan, M., Righetti, L., Schaal, S.
Towards Associative Skill Memories
In IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots, 2012, clmc (inproceedings)
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Wüthrich, M., Pastor, P., Righetti, L., Billard, A., Schaal, S.
Probabilistic depth image registration incorporating nonvisual information
In IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), pages: 3637-3644, 2012, clmc (inproceedings)
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Righetti, L., Schaal, S.
Quadratic programming for inverse dynamics with optimal distribution of contact forces
In 2012 IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots, pages: 538-543, Osaka, 2012, clmc (inproceedings)
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Ernesti, J., Righetti, L., Do, M., Asfour, T., Schaal, S.
Encoding of Periodic and their Transient Motions by a Single Dynamic Movement Primitive
In 2012 IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots, pages: 57-64, Osaka, 2012, clmc (inproceedings)
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Kalakrishnan, M., Righetti, L., Pastor, P., Schaal, S.
Learning force control policies for compliant manipulation
In IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2011), Sept. 25-30, San Francisco, CA, 2011, clmc (inproceedings)
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Pastor, P., Righetti, L., Kalakrishnan, M., Schaal, S.
Online movement adaptation based on previous sensor experiences
In IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), pages: 365-371, 2011 (inproceedings)
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Degallier, S., Righetti, L., Gay, S., Ijspeert, A.
Toward simple control for complex, autonomous robotic applications: combining discrete and rhythmic motor primitives
Autonomous Robots, 31(2-3):155-181, 2011 (article)
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Righetti, L., Mistry, M., Buchli, J., Schaal, S.
Inverse dynamics control of floating-base robots with external contraints: an unified view
In IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Shanghai, China, May 9-13, 2011, clmc (inproceedings)
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Mistry, M., Righetti, L.
Operational Space Control of Constrained and Underactuated Systems
In Proceedings of Robotics: Science and Systems, Los Angeles, CA, USA, 2011 (inproceedings)
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Righetti, L., Buchli, J., Mistry, M., Schaal, S.
Control of legged robots with optimal distribution of contact forces
In 2011 11th IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots, pages: 318 - 324, 2011, clmc (inproceedings)
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Stulp, F., Theodorou, E., Kalakrishnan, M., Pastor, P., Righetti, L., Schaal, S.
Learning motion primitive goals for robust manipulation
In IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2011), Sept. 25-30, San Francisco, CA, 2011, clmc (inproceedings)
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Gregg, R. D., Righetti, L., Buchli, J., Schaal, S.
Constrained accelerations for controlled geometric reduction: Sagittal-plane decoupling for bipedal locomotion
In Humanoid Robots (Humanoids), 2010 10th IEEE-RAS International Conference on, pages: 1-7, December 2010, clmc (inproceedings)
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Righetti, L., Buchli, J., Mistry, M., Schaal, S.
Inverse dynamics with optimal distribution of ground reaction forces for legged robots
In Proceedings of the international conference on climbing and walking robots (CLAWAR) 2010, Nagoya, Japan, Aug.31-Sept.3, 2010, clmc (inproceedings)
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Daley, M., Righetti, L., Ijspeert, A.
Modelling the interplay of central pattern generation and sensory feedback in the neuromuscular control of running
In Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology - Part A: Molecular & Integrative Physiology. Annual Main Meeting for the Society for Experimental Biology, Glasgow, Scotland, 2009 (inproceedings)
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Sproewitz, A., Fremerey, M., Karakasiliotis, K., Rutishauser, S., Righetti, L., Ijspeert, A.
Compliant Leg Design for a Quadruped Robot
In Proceedings of Dynamic Walking 2009, Vancouver, Canada, 2009 (inproceedings)
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Righetti, L., Buchli, J., Ijspeert, A.
Adaptive Frequency Oscillators and Applications
The Open Cybernetics {\&} Systemics Journal, 3, pages: 64-69, 2009 (article)