Rate My Professor Takayuki Matsuno

Professor Matsuno’s research centers on robotics and intelligent mechanical systems, encompassing manipulation of deformable linear objects such as ropes and wires using topological models and knot invariants, development of CT-guided needle puncture robots like Zerobot for interventional radiology to minimize physician radiation exposure, autonomous mobile robot navigation in unknown rough terrains via Growing Neural Gas for 3D point cloud perception, traversability clustering, and path planning, as well as control of underactuated systems and neural network-based shape matching. His notable achievements include the SICE Paper Award and SICE RT Middleware Award in 2024, Japan Computer Surgery Society Paper Award (Excellent Case Award) in 2021, SICE SI Department Contribution Award in 2020 for chairing the SI2019 program committee, and the 15th Murakawa-Namba Technology Encouragement Award in 2020 for Zerobot. Key publications feature “Sliding-mode velocity control of mobile-wheeled inverted-pendulum systems” (IEEE Transactions on Robotics, 2010), “Modeling and velocity control for a novel narrow vehicle based on mobile wheeled inverted pendulum” (IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology, 2012), “Robotically driven CT-guided needle insertion: preliminary results in phantom and animal experiments” (Radiology, 2017), and “PointGNG: a deep learning architecture for 3D point cloud recognition using growing neural gas” (Artificial Life and Robotics, 2026). He edited the proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Intelligent Robotics and Applications in 2025.