Nolan Fey

I'm a Ph.D. student in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) at MIT, where I'm advised by Pulkit Agrawal. My research focuses on designing whole-body control methods that enable robots to intelligently move through and interact with the world. I'm grateful to be supported by the NSF GRFP.

Previously, I received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering with a Second Major in Physics at Notre Dame, where I worked with Patrick Wensing and Michael Lemmon. I've also been fortunate to intern at the U.S. Naval Research Lab in D.C. and NASA JPL.

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Research

I equip robots with foundational motion skills that are broadly applicable to a wide range of tasks. The tools I develop are easily adaptable to new robots and environments, paving the way for future applications that demand significant mobility and control—whether it’s a construction robot, a cave explorer on distant planets, or a home robot that can help you move a couch!

Enhancing the sim-to-real transfer for a legged manipulator by calibrating actuator dynamics and refining whole-body control, enabling agile feats like throwing, lifting, and dragging

A learning-based framework that allows a walking robot to stabilize itself under disturbances neglected by its base controller. We applied it to stabilize the MIT Mini Cheetah as it carried a box of water on its back.

By approximating each of the robot's stance phases to be impulsive, we enable a mixed-integer program to quickly plan consecutive hops for a quadruped between surfaces while avoiding obstacles.