Junhyeok Ahn

I am a software engineer at Boston Dynamics. I received my Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin under the supervision of Dr. Luis Sentis. My research interests lie broadly in planning, control, optimization, and machine learning algorithms for legged robots. At Boston Dynamics, I am currently working on a behavior foundation model for Atlas.

Email  /  CV  /  Google Scholar  /  LinkedIn  /  GitHub

profile photo
Publications
Large Behavior Models and Atlas Find New Footing
Atlas LBM Team,
Blog post, 2025  

Link

Large behavior model that lets Atlas use vision, proprioception, and language cues to perform long-horizon tasks combining locomotion + whole-body manipulation

Control and evaluation of a humanoid robot with rolling contact joints on its lower body
Seung Hyeon Bang, Carlos Gonzalez, Junhyeok Ahn, Nick Paine, Luis Sentis
Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 2023  

PDF / BibTeX

Control and evaluation of Draco3 humanoid robot.

Data-Driven Safety Verification and Explainability for Whole-Body Manipulation and Locomotion
Junhyeok Ahn, Seung Hyeon Bang, Carlos Gonzalez, Yuanchen Yuan, Luis Sentis
IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots, 2022  

PDF / BibTeX

Learning-based safety verification tool for legged robots.

Nested Mixture of Experts: Cooperative and Competitive Learning of Hybrid Dynamical System
Junhyeok Ahn, Luis Sentis
Learning for Dynamics and Control, 2021  

PDF / BibTeX

Novel network representation for hybrid dynamical systems.

Online Gain Adaptation of Whole-Body Control for Legged Robots with Unknown Disturbances
Jaemin Lee, Junhyeok Ahn, Donghyun Kim, Luis Sentis
Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 2021  

PDF / BibTeX

Robust gain adaptation method in whole-body controller.

Versatile Locomotion Planning and Control for Humanoid Robots
Junhyeok Ahn, Steven Jens Jorgensen, Seung Hyeon Bang, Luis Sentis
Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 2021  

PDF / BibTeX

Trajectory optimization framework with a centroidal inertia network and whole-body controller with an implicit task hierarchy for humanoid robots.

Reachability-based trajectory optimization for robotic systems given sequences of rigid contacts
Jaemin Lee, Junhyeok Ahn, Efstathios Bakolas, Luis Sentis
American Control Conference, 2020  

PDF / BibTeX

Trajectory generation based on sampling-based reachability analysis and optimal control.

Dynamic locomotion for passive-ankle biped robots and humanoids using whole-body locomotion control
Donghyun Kim, Steven Jens Jorgensen, Jaemin Lee, Junhyeok Ahn, Jianwen Luo, Luis Sentis
The International Journal of Robotics Research, 2020  

PDF / BibTeX

Time-to-velocity reversal planner and whole-body locomotion controller for passive-ankle bipeds.

Data-Efficient and Safe Learning for Humanoid Locomotion Aided by a Dynamic Balancing Model
Junhyeok Ahn, Jaemin Lee, Luis Sentis
IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 2020  

PDF / BibTeX

Safe and efficient learning of locomotion policy combining a capturability, control barrier function, and hierarchical reinforcement learning.

Control of a High Performance Bipedal Robot using Viscoelastic Liquid Cooled Actuators
Junhyeok Ahn, Donghyun Kim, Seung Hyeon Bang, Nick Paine, Luis Sentis
IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots, 2019  

PDF / BibTeX

Design, control, and evaluation of a new human-scaled biped robot with liquid cooled viscoelastic actuators.

Computationally-Robust and Efficient Prioritized Whole-Body Controller with Contact Constraints
Donghyun Kim, Jaemin Lee, Junhyeok Ahn, Orion Campbell, Hochul Hwang, Luis Sentis
IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and System, 2018  

PDF / BibTeX

Whole-body controller that considers centroidal momentum dynamics, operational task priorities, contact reaction forces, and internal force constraints.

Fast Kinodynamic Bipedal Locomotion Planning with Moving Obstacles
Junhyeok Ahn, Orion Campbell, Donghyun Kim, Luis Sentis
IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, 2018  

PDF / BibTeX

Kino-dynamic RRT planning for humanoids in maze environemnts.

Investigations of a Robotic Test Bed With Viscoelastic Liquid Cooled Actuators
* Best Paper Award
Donghyun Kim, Junhyeok Ahn, Orion Campbell, Nicholas Paine, Luis Sentis
IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics, 2018  

PDF / BibTeX

Design, control, and evaluation of a new viscoelastic liquid cooled actuator technology.

Investigations of viscoelastic liquid cooled actuators applied for dynamic motion control of legged systems
Donghyun Kim, Orion Campbell, Junhyeok Ahn, Luis Sentis Nicholas Paine,
IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots, 2017  

PDF / BibTeX

Design, control, and evaluation of a new viscoelastic liquid cooled actuator technology.

Exploring Model Predictive Control to Generate Optimal Control Policies for HRI Dynamical Systems
Steven Jens Jorgensen, Orion Campbell, Travis Llado, Donghyun Kim, Junhyeok Ahn, Luis Sentis
arXiv, 2017  

PDF / BibTeX

Human-aware control policy that incorporates social cognitive theory and model predictive control with mixed integer constraints.

Software
  • PnC: C++ library designed for generating trajectories for a robot system and stabilizing the system over the trajectories.

  • PyPnC: Python implementation of PnC.

  • tf_rbdl: Tensorflow-based rigid body dynamics algorithms.

  • Website source from Jon Barron and Chaitanya Malaviya