Pint of Robotics: Towards whole-body model predictive control for safe and compliant interaction, Dr Wolfgang Merkt, University of Oxford

  • Date:
  • Time: 1700-1800
  • Location: Zoom (see below for registration link)

Speaker: Dr Wolfgang Merkt, University of Oxford

Title: Towards whole-body model predictive control for safe and compliant interaction

When: Wednesday 10th March, 1700-1800

Where: Zoom (free but registration required)

Abstract: Wolfgang’s work focuses on trajectory optimisation and optimal control with applications to legged robots such as quadrupeds and humanoids and mobile loco-manipulation. In this talk, he will give an overview on recent work in improving the performance and versatility of high-performance trajectory optimisation as well as how performance can be improved by leveraging prior experience.

Short Bio: Wolfgang Merkt is a postdoc at the University of Oxford focusing on optimal planning and control of high degrees of freedom systems interacting with environments. Prior to joining the Oxford Robotics Institute, Wolfgang completed a PhD at the University of Edinburgh where he focused on efficient trajectory optimisation formulations for online replanning in response to dynamic changes. In particular, he explored warmstart initialisation from experience to allow algorithms to scale to high-dimensional scenarios and real-world applications in complex, dynamic, and shared environments.