Publications
Journal Papers
Maximum diffusion reinforcement learning
Thomas A. Berrueta, Allison Pinosky, Todd D. Murphey
Nature Machine Intelligence, vol. 6, no. 5, pp. 504-514, 2024.
Safe coverage for heterogeneous systems with limited connectivity
Annalisa T. Taylor, Thomas A. Berrueta, Allison Pinosky, Todd D. Murphey
IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, vol. 9, no. 10, pp. 8866-8873, 2024.
Materializing autonomy in soft robots across scales
Thomas A. Berrueta, Todd D. Murphey, Ryan L. Truby
Advanced Intelligent Systems, vol. 6, no. 2, 2300111, 2023.
Emergent microrobotic oscillators via asymmetry-induced order
Thomas A. Berrueta, Jing Fan Yang, Allan M. Brooks, Albert Tianxiang Liu, Ge Zhang, David Gonzalez-Medrano, Sungyun Yang, Volodymyr B. Koman, Pavel Chvykov, Lexy N. LeMar, Marc Z. Miskin, Todd D. Murphey, Michael S. Strano
Nature Communications, vol. 13, 5734, 2022.
Memristor circuits for colloidal robotics: Temporal access to memory, sensing, and actuation
Jing Fan Yang, Albert Tianxiang Liu, Thomas A. Berrueta, Ge Zhang, Allan M. Brooks, Volodymyr B. Koman, Sungyun Yang, Xun Gong, Todd D. Murphey, Michael S. Strano
Advanced Intelligent Systems, vol. 4, no. 4, 2100205, 2022.
Low rattling: A predictive principle for self-organization in active collectives
Pavel Chvykov, Thomas A. Berrueta, Akash Vardhan, William Savoie, Alexander Samland, Todd D. Murphey, Kurt Wiesenfeld, Daniel I. Goldman, Jeremy L. England
Science, vol. 371, no. 6524, 2021.
Active learning in robotics: A review of control principles
Annalisa T. Taylor, Thomas A. Berrueta, Todd D. Murphey
Mechatronics, vol. 77, 102576, 2021.
A robot made of robots: Emergent transport and control of a smarticle ensemble
William Savoie, Thomas A. Berrueta, Zachary Jackson, Ana Pervan, Ross Warkentin, Shengkai Li, Todd D. Murphey, Kurt Wiesenfeld, Daniel I. Goldman
Science Robotics, vol. 4, no. 34, 2019.
Dynamical system segmentation for information measures in motion
Thomas A. Berrueta, Ana Pervan, Kathleen Fitzsimons, Todd D. Murphey
IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 169-176, 2019.
Conference Papers
Physical state exploration for reinforcement learning from scratch
Allison Pinosky, Thomas A. Berrueta, Olivia Li, Todd D. Murphey
Proceedings of the International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (CASE), 2025.
Real-time learning based planning for autonomous rendezvous in space with actuator loss of effectiveness
Satvik G. Kumar, Joshua Ibrahim, Thomas A. Berrueta, Soon-Jo Chung, Fred Y. Hadaegh
Proceedings of the AAS Guidance, Navigation & Control (GNC) Conference, 2025.
Information requirements of collision-based micromanipulation
Thomas A. Berrueta, Alexandra Q. Nilles, Ana Pervan, Todd D. Murphey, Steven M. LaValle
Proceedings of the Workshop on the Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics (WAFR), 2020.
Data-driven gait segmentation for walking assistance in a lower-limb assistive device
Alexandra Kalinowska, Thomas A. Berrueta, Adam Zoss, Todd D. Murphey
Proceedings of the International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2019.
Book Chapters
Experimental applications of the Koopman operator in active learning for control
Thomas A. Berrueta, Ian Abraham, Todd D. Murphey
The Koopman Operator in Systems and Control, 2020.
Workshop Papers
Active learning of tire parameters for high-speed autonomous racing
Thomas A. Berrueta, Nikhil Ranganathan, Soon-Jo Chung
Robotics: Science and Systems, 2025.
Emergent mechanism design via robot swarms
Annalisa T. Taylor, Thomas A. Berrueta, Todd D. Murphey
Robotics: Science and Systems, 2022.
Emergent beating in colloidal matter: Stabilization via symmetry breaking
Thomas A. Berrueta, Jing Fan Yang, Allan M. Brooks, Albert T. Liu, Michael S. Strano, Todd D. Murphey
Bulletin of the American Physical Society, 2022.
Optimizing the locomotion of a robotic active matter system of smarticles
Annalisa T. Taylor, Thomas A. Berrueta, Todd D. Murphey
Bulletin of the American Physical Society, 2021.
Corralling active Brownian particles with "active billiard" particles
Alexandra Q. Nilles, Ana Pervan, Thomas A. Berrueta, Todd D. Murphey
Bulletin of the American Physical Society, 2020.
Towards robust motion planning for synthetic cells in a circulatory system
Thomas A. Berrueta, Ana Pervan, Todd D. Murphey
Robotics: Science and Systems, 2019.
Invited Talks
Towards transparent & reliable embodied reinforcement learning agents
Microsoft Future Leaders in Robotics and AI Seminar Series.
University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, USA (4/26/2024).
Robot thermodynamics: Making complex systems task-capable
Early-Career Investigator Invited Seminar.
Gordon Research Conference (GRC): Complex Active and Adaptive Material Systems, Ventura Beach Marriott, California, USA (2/1/2023).
Engineering robotic active matter through nonequilibrium self-organization
Emergent Phenomena in Active and Living Materials Session.
Gordon Research Seminar (GRS): Complex Active and Adaptive Material Systems, Ventura Beach Marriott, California, USA (1/29/2023).
Imprecision engineering: Lowering cost while increasing capability
Presidential Fellows Lecture Series.
Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, USA (10/20/2022).
Designing for emergence: Making materials "robotic" with self-organization
Center for Robotics and Biosystems Seminar Series.
Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, USA (6/17/2022).
Robot thermodynamics: Analysis, control, and design of complex systems
Allen Discovery Center Invited Seminar.
Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts, USA (4/26/2022).
Online learning in physical systems
Symposium on Leveraging Machine Learning for Dynamics and Control.
SIAM Conference on Dynamical Systems (5/26/2021).
Low rattling: Predicting driven self-organization
Center for Robotics and Biosystems Seminar Series.
Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, USA (12/4/2020).
Doctoral Dissertation
Robot Thermodynamics
Thomas A. Berrueta
Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, USA. September 2024.
Masters Thesis
Dynamical system segmentation: Data-driven symbolic abstractions for motion analysis and control
Thomas A. Berrueta
Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, USA. September 2020.