Max Muchen Sun

Max Muchen Sun

Ph.D. Candidate in Robotics

Northwestern University, Evanston, IL

I am a Ph.D. candidate in robotics at Northwestern University Center for Robotics and Biosystems, advised by Prof. Todd Murphey. I also collaborate with Dr. Pete Trautman at Honda Research Institute.

My research focuses on real-time robot learning for control of single- and multi-agent systems. My work intersects with algorithmic decision-making, optimization, and machine learning. Applications of my work include social navigation, autonomous exploration, robot manipulation, 3D perception, and soft robot control. Here is my research statement.

Please check out my CV, Google Scholar, and GitHub.

I’m currently seeking postdoctoral opportunities in robotics. If my background sounds like a good fit, I’d love to hear from you!


Publication

Flow Matching Ergodic Coverage
Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS) 2025
Flow Matching Ergodic Coverage
Fast Ergodic Search with Kernel Functions
IEEE Transactions on Robotics (T-RO), 2025
Fast Ergodic Search with Kernel Functions
Mixed Strategy Nash Equilibrium for Crowd Navigation
The International Journal of Robotics Research (IJRR), 2024
Mixed Strategy Nash Equilibrium for Crowd Navigation
Automated Gait Generation For Walking, Soft Robotic Quadrupeds
2023 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)
Automated Gait Generation For Walking, Soft Robotic Quadrupeds
Scale-Invariant Fast Functional Registration
International Symposium of Robotics Research (ISRR) 2022
Scale-Invariant Fast Functional Registration
Move Beyond Trajectories: Distribution Space Coupling for Crowd Navigation
Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS) 2021
Move Beyond Trajectories: Distribution Space Coupling for Crowd Navigation