Intern

Junhyeok Cha is a member of the IHMC Robotics Lab where he works on improving whole-body control for legged robots with a focus on multi-contact locomotion such as walking, climbing over obstacles, and recovering from the ground.

He is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Intelligence and Information at Seoul National University in South Korea. At IHMC, Cha works with IHMC Research Scientist Dr. Geoff Clark, whose research focuses on the intersection of classical control, optimal filtering, and machine learning to create symbiotic human-robot interactions for robotic prosthetics and exoskeletons. 

Cha’s research interests focus on general-purpose humanoid control, developing deep reinforcement learning as well as imitation–learning frameworks that bridge multi-task adaptability across platforms, including TOCABI, which stands for Torque-Controlled CompliAnt Biped, which are life-sized humanoids designed for research in humanoid robotics.

Cha’s work connects with parallel efforts in perception and planning aimed at helping humanoids navigate obstacles and terrain in pursuit of task goals. He first joined IHMC through an internship for Artificial Intelligence for Legged Robots, where worked on improving whole-body control for humanoids driven by motion capture data.