Robot Talk Episode 140 – Robot balance and agility, with Amir Patel

Published January 16, 2026 · Category: Robotics

Overview

Claire chatted to Amir Patel from University College London about designing robots with the agility and manoeuvrability of a cheetah.

Amir Patel is an Associate Professor of Robotics & AI in the Department of Computer Science at University College London (UCL). His research uses robotics methods—sensor fusion, computer vision, mechanical modelling, and optimal control—to understand and quantify animal locomotion, especially high-speed predators such as the cheetah, and to translate these insights into bio-inspired machines. Previously, he served on the faculty of Electrical Engineering at the University of Cape Town, where he founded and directed the African Robotics Unit (ARU).

Source

Originally published at robohub.org.

Related Articles

• AgenticNav: Zero-Shot Vision-and-Language Navigation as a Tool-Calling Harness
• Act on What You See: Unlocking Safe Social Navigation in Vision-Language-Action Models
• Dexterous Point Policy: Learning Point-based Dexterous Hand Policies from Human Demonstrations