About
Hi, I am Blake. I currently reside at Neya Systems as a Senior Robotics Engineer working broadly on the advancement of robust software for off-road autonomy. Most of my time, however, is dedicated to serving as a core contributor on the team developing Neya’s Virtual Integration and Simulation Environment (VISE), a high-fidelity off-road autonomy simulator. Prior to Neya, I spent some time at RE2 Robotics as an Autonomy and Motion Planning Engineer, solving impactful problems in robotics, typically aimed at alleviating the necessity of humans in performing dangerous tasks in potentially dangerous environments. Much of my work has allowed me to develop skills in various aspects of autonomous robotic systems: embedded software for manipulators, hierarchical state machines for autonomy, motion planning and control, and a bit of computer vision. I also highly value contributing to research that pushes the boundaries of robotics and AI, and am particularly passionate about optimization-based motion planning and control.
My research experience has roots in the fields of robotics, applied mathematics, and mechanics. My most recent research-based activities involved geometric methods for accomplishing control and coordination for biologically inspired multi-robot systems as part of the research staff in the Biorobotics Lab at Carnegie Mellon University. See my Research page for more information. I also enjoy traveling and the outdoors, particularly rock climbing (see my Explore page).
See my Portfolio page for implementations of various topics in dynamical systems and optimal control.
Publications
GraphEQA: Using 3D Semantic Scene Graphs for Real-time Embodied Question Answering. Saumya Saxena, Blake Buchanan, Chris Paxton, Peiqi Liu, Bingqing Chen, Narunas Vaskevicius, Luigi Palmieri, Jonathan Francis, and Oliver Kroemer, (2025) Conference on Robot Learning (CoRL) [arXiv] [website]
The Geometric Structure of Externally Actuated Planar Locomoting Systems in Ambient Media. Blake Buchanan, Tony Dear, Scott D. Kelly, Matthew Travers, and Howie Choset, (2021) arXiv Preprint. [arXiv]
Stability and Control of Chaplygin Beanies Coupled to a Platform Through Nonholonomic Constraints. Blake Buchanan, Matthew Travers, Howie Choset, and Scott D. Kelly, (2020) ASME 2020 Dynamic Systems and Control Conference [paper]
Locomotion of a multi-link non-holonomic snake robot with passive joints. Tony Dear, Blake Buchanan, Rodrigo Abrajan-Guerrero, Scott D. Kelly, Matthew Travers, & Howie Choset (2020) International Journal of Robotics Research, 39(5), 598–616.[paper]
Mechanics and Control of Coupled Interactions in Ambient Media. Blake Buchanan (2020) Master’s Thesis, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA [paper]
Conference Presentations
Blake Buchanan (2019, May). Modeling and Dynamics of Planar Swimmers Coupled through Wake Vorticity. Presentation given at the 2019 SIAM Conference on Applications of Dynamical Systems (DS19)
Blake Buchanan, Matthew Travers. Howie Choset, Kelly S. (2020, October). Stability and Control of Chaplygin Beanies Coupled to a Platform Through Nonholonomic Constraints. Presentation given at the ASME 2020 Dynamic Systems and Control Conference