Do-Gon Kim

I recently completed my Master's degree in Mechanical Engineering @ Columbia University. I researched in the Robotic Manipulation and Mobility (ROAM) Laboratory with Eric Chang as a graduate researcher, advised by Professor Matei Ciocarlie, and in the Nonlinear Controls Research Group as a graduate researcher, advised by Professor Homayoon Beigi. My past research can be categorized into three areas: Finger Design Integrated with Tactile Sensors, Signal Processing for Sensing, and Control Algorithm Development. I have explored the design of systems that mimic the multiple sensory receptors of human touch. Moving forward, I aim to explore the design of tactile fingers and control systems that emulate human touch and realize sensing capabilities beyond the limits of human perception. Furthermore, I seek to investigate how such biologically inspired systems can help robots better understand and interact with their environment.

Before Columbia, I received my Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering @ New York University, where I worked in the Control/Robotics Research Laboratory (CRRL) as an undergraduate researcher, advised by Professor Farshad Khorrami.

Email / CV / GitHub / LinkedIn

Recent Updates

[10-2025] Our work on SpikeATac is featured in The Wall Street Journal and IEEE Spectrum!
[10-2025] Presented paper & poster at IROS 2025
[10-2025] Presented poster with ROAMHand3 demo at NERC 2025
[7-2025] Gave a talk to Re'Generation Movement and high school students through the Jeju Special Self-Governing Province Office of Education’s “2025 Global University Exploration for High School Students”
[5-2025] Joined Nonlinear Controls Research Group
[5-2025] Graduated from Columbia University!

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Research

My current research focuses on tactile sensing, robotic manipulation, and control systems, aiming to develop robots that better understand and respond to the physical world.

	SpikeATac: A Multimodal Tactile Finger with Taxelized Dynamic Sensing for Dexterous Manipulation Eric T. Chang, Peter Ballentine, Zhanpeng He, Do-Gon Kim, Kai Jiang, Hua-Hsuan Liang, Joaquin Palacios, William Wang, Pedro Piacenza, Ioannis Kymissis, Matei Ciocarlie joint first authorship Under Review arXiv / Website
	VibeCheck: Using Active Acoustic Tactile Sensing for Contact-Rich Manipulation Kaidi Zhang, Do-Gon Kim, Eric T. Chang, Hua-Hsuan Liang, Zhanpeng He, Kathryn Lampo, Philippe Wu, Ioannis Kymissis, Matei Ciocarlie equal contribution IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) 2025 arXiv / Website

Project

Selected projects from course and research.

	PD Control on JetCobot Research Project \| Nonlinear Controls Research Group \| Columbia University Built a ROS 2 (C++) control framework for the JetCobot.
	Hand Gesture based Parallel Gripper Control Research Project \| ROAM Lab \| Columbia University Built a vision-based control system for the parallel gripper for hands-free operation.
	Autonomous Navigation in A Scaled-Down Smart City Research Project \| DitecT Lab \| Columbia University Designed simulation framework for autonomous vehicles to test algorithms without physical hardware. Developed a real-time ArUco marker detection system for AWS Deepracer.
	Cable-Driven Parallel Robot with Adaptive Velocity Controller in Distribution Warehouse Course Project \| MECE E4602 Introduction to Robotics \| Columbia University Developed an adaptive velocity controller for a 4-cable-driven parallel robot, enabling dynamic speed adjustments based on the different objects. paper
	Autonomous Navigation Research Project \| CRR Lab \| New York University Investigated the accuracy of a map created by gmapping, one of the Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) algorithms, using the Turtlebot3 burger. abstract booklet
	Sheet Music Sight-Reader Course Project \| ROB-UY 3203 Robot Vision \| New York University Created a Colab-based CV pipeline that takes in the image of a sheet of music and outputs a playable music file.
	SYDRAULIC Course Project \| ME-UY 4112 Senior Design I \| New York University Conducted finite element modeling and analysis of a hydraulic jack–assisted car door escape system using ANSYS, evaluating deformation, stress distribution, and harmonic response of piston, cylinder, and door presentation