Juntao He

About Me

I’m a final-year PhD student in Robotics at Georgia Tech, advised by Daniel Goldman and Sehoon Ha. My research interests include legged locomotion, bio-inspired robotics, tactile sensing, and reinforcement learning.

During my PhD, I have developed elongated multi-legged robotic systems and integrated tactile sensing, reinforcement learning, and geometric control to improve locomotion in highly unstructured, confined environments. Our work has been published in top journals and conferences, including Science, IEEE Transactions on Robotics, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, The International Journal of Robotics Research, Robotics: Science and Systems, and ICRA.

Our research has been featured by outlets such as BBC, IEEE Spectrum, New Scientist, Science, and Physics World, and it has contributed to the development of the startup Ground Control Robotics Inc.

I also served as a reviewer of IEEE Transactions on Robotics, The International Journal of Robotics Research, Journal of Field Robotics, npj Robotics, IROS, ICRA.

I’m currently seeking Robotics Research Scientist or Engineering roles. If you think my background could be a good fit, please feel free to reach me directly at jhe391@gatech.edu.

News

Jan 2026 - Invited to give a talk at the Gordon Research Conference.
Oct 2025 - Successfully defended PhD proposal.
Sep 2025 - Received the Georgia Tech Topping Fellowship for research excellence for the third time.
Aug 2025 - Completed research internship at Analog Devices Inc.

Selected Publications

He, Juntao, Baxi Chong, Jianfeng Lin, Zhaochen Xu, Hosain Bagheri, Esteban Flores, and Daniel I. Goldman. “Probabilistic approach to feedback control enhances multi-legged locomotion on rugged landscapes.” IEEE Transactions on Robotics (2025). [Paper] [Project Website]
He, Juntao, Baxi Chong, Meatano Iaschi, Vincent R. Nienhusser, Sehoon Ha, and Daniel I. Goldman. “Tactile sensing enables vertical obstacle negotiation for elongate many-legged robots.” Robotics: Science and Systems (2025). [Paper] [Project Website]
Chong, Baxi, Juntao He, Daniel Soto, Tianyu Wang, Daniel Irvine, Greg Blekherman, and Daniel I. Goldman. “Multilegged matter transport: A framework for locomotion on noisy landscapes.” Science 380 (6644), 509-515 (2023). [Paper] [Supplementary Materials] [Supplementary Videos]
Chong, Baxi, Juntao He, Shaohang Li, Emily Erickson, Kevin Diaz, Tianyu Wang, Daniel Soto, and Daniel I. Goldman. “Self-propulsion via slipping: Frictional swimming in multilegged locomotors.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 120 (11), e2213698120 (2023). [Paper] [Supplementary Materials] [Supplementary Videos]