Aaron Johnson

Aaron Johnson is a Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University's College of Engineering, where he directs the Robomechanics Lab. He also holds courtesy appointments in the Robotics Institute and the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering. His research focuses on enabling robots to operate robustly in complex, real-world environments through innovations in robot design, control, and interaction dynamics.

• Ph.D., Electrical & Systems Engineering, University of Pennsylvania (2014)
• B.S., Electrical & Computer Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University (2008)

Johnson’s research interests lie at the intersection of legged robotics, adaptive control, bioinspired design, and physics-based planning. He investigates how robots can intelligently interact with unstructured environments—such as rocky terrain, cluttered homes, or industrial sites—by integrating mechanical design, sensor feedback, and intelligent control. His lab develops platforms like Zippy (the world’s smallest bipedal robot) and Picotaur, and works on dynamic behaviors including climbing, jumping, and navigating entanglements.

The most recent publications highlight a strong trend in hybrid dynamical systems, robust state estimation, terrain-aware navigation, and ethical considerations in robotics. His group advances techniques in contact-implicit control, MPC, Kalman filtering for hybrid systems, and field deployment of autonomous robots for environmental monitoring. Themes of scalability, energy efficiency, and bioinspiration recur across the work.

Johnson has received several prestigious awards:

• NSF CAREER Award (2020)
• Army Research Office Young Investigator Award (2019)
• Best Workshop Paper Award at ICRA 2022 (Quad-SDK)
• David Thuma Laboratory Project Award (2008)
• Honorable mention, CRA Outstanding Undergraduate Award (2008)

He actively mentors students through his graduate course 24-775 Robot Design & Experimentation and lab outreach programs, including partnerships with Gwen’s Girls. He has secured grants for fielding legged robots in real-world applications, such as soil contamination sampling and hill climbing. Johnson co-organizes the CMU Locomotion Seminar and is committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion in robotics, co-authoring the Black in Robotics Reading List and advocating for ethical research practices.

The Robomechanics Lab emphasizes ethical research, academic reform, equitable access, and community support. It develops full-stack frameworks like Quad-SDK and conducts field experiments in diverse environments—from deserts to power plants—pushing the boundaries of where robots can go and what they can do.