Books, papers, and videos
Books
- Matthew T. Mason, Mechanics of Robotic Manipulation, MIT Press: Cambridge, MA. 2001. Link to Google Books.
(Errata: link to text file)
Matthew T. Mason and J. Kenneth Salisbury, Robot Hands and the Mechanics of Manipulation, MIT Press: Cambridge, MA. 1985. Link to Google Books.
- J. Michael Brady, John M. Hollerbach, Timothy Johnson, Tomas Lozano-Perez, and Matthew T. Mason, Robot Motion: Planning and Control, MIT Press: Cambridge, MA. 1982. Link to Google Books.
A few not very technical papers
- Toward Robotic Manipulation. Annual Review of Control, Robotics, and Autonomous Systems: 1, pages 1–28. 2018. Link to PDF.
- Creation myths: The beginnings of robotics research. IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine,19:2, pp. 72–77, Jun. 2012. Link to PDF.
- Kicking the Sensing Habit. AI Magazine, 14:1, pp. 58–59, Spring 1993. Link to PDF.
Videos
See my YouTube channel. Here’s a link.
Talks and interviews with links to videos
- A Manipulation Journey. CMU Robotics Institute Seminar. October 10, 2025. (Featured on IEEE Spectrum Video Friday.)
- Embracing Failure. ICRA 2019 Keynote. May 21, 2019.
- Robotic Manipulation. A podcast interview. Peggy Smedley Podcast. 1/22/2019.
- Robotics, Manipulation, Uncertainty. Symposium on Robotics: Science and Technology. Collège de France. Paris, France. June 12, 2012.
- Contact vs clutter, vacuum cups vs hands. RSS Workshop on Navigating Contact Dynamics in Robotics, June, 2025. Copy of slides.
A few technical papers
Cheng, Xianyi, Sarvesh Patil, Zeynep Temel, Oliver Kroemer, and Matthew T. Mason. “Enhancing Dexterity in Robotic Manipulation via Hierarchical Contact Exploration.” IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters 9, no. 1 (2024): 390–397. Preprint.
Huang, Eric, Xianyi Cheng, Yuemin Mao, Arnav Gupta, and Matthew T. Mason. “Autogenerated manipulation primitives.” The International Journal of Robotics Research 42, no. 6 (2024/02/05 2023): 433–458. PDF link.
Bhatia, Ankit, Aaron M. Johnson, and Matthew T. Mason. “Direct Drive Hands: Force-Motion Transparency in Gripper Design.” In Robotics: Science and Systems. June 2019. PDF link.
Hou, Yifan, and Matthew T Mason. “Robust execution of contact-rich motion plans by hybrid force-velocity control.” In 2019 International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 1933–1939. IEEE, 2019. IEEE link.
Mannam, Pragna, Alexander Jr. Volkov, Robert Paolini, Gregory Chirikjian, and Matthew T. Mason. “Sensorless Pose Determination using Randomized Action Sequences.” Entropy 21, no. 2 (2019). Open access link.
Zhou, Jiaji, Yifan Hou, and Matthew T. Mason. “Pushing revisited: Differential flatness, trajectory planning, and stabilization.” The International Journal of Robotics Research 38, nos. 12-13 (2019): 1477–1489. Available access link.
Huang, Eric, Ankit Bhatia, Byron Boots, and Matthew T. Mason. “Exact Bounds on the Contact Driven Motion of a Sliding Object, With Applications to Robotic Pulling.” In Proceedings of Robotics: Science and Systems. Cambridge, Massachusetts, July 2017. PDF link.
Nakamura, Yuzuko C., Daniel M. Troniak, Alberto Rodriguez, Matthew T. Mason, and Nancy S. Pollard. “The Complexities of Grasping in the Wild.” IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots. 2017. IEEE link.
Chavan-Dafle, Nikhil, A. Rodriguez, R. Paolini, Bowei Tang, S.S. Srinivasa, M. Erdmann, M.T. Mason, I. Lundberg, H. Staab, and T. Fuhlbrigge. “Extrinsic dexterity: In-hand manipulation with external forces.” In IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 1578–1585. May 2014. IEEE link.
Mason, Matthew T., Alberto Rodriguez, Siddhartha S. Srinivasa, and Andres S. Vazquez. “Autonomous manipulation with a general-purpose simple hand.” The International Journal of Robotics Research 31, no. 5 (April 2012): 688–703. Sage Journals link.
Rodriguez, Alberto, and Matthew T. Mason. “Grasp Invariance.” International Journal of Robotics Research 31, no. 2 (February 2012): 237–249. Sage Journals link.
Rodriguez, Alberto, Matthew T Mason, and Steve Ferry. “From caging to grasping.” The International Journal of Robotics Research 31, no. 7 (2012): 886–900. Sage Journals link.
Mason, Matthew T., Alberto Rodriguez, Siddhartha S. Srinivasa, and Andres S. Vazquez. “Autonomous Manipulation with a General-Purpose Simple Hand.” The International Journal of Robotics Research, 2011. Sage Journals link.
Balkcom, Devin J., and Matthew T. Mason. “Robotic origami folding.” The International Journal of Robotics Research 27, no. 5 (2008): 613. Sage Journals link.
Balkcom, Devin J., and Matthew T. Mason. “Time Optimal Trajectories for Bounded Velocity Differential Drive Vehicles.” International Journal of Robotics Research 21, no. 3 (March 2002): 199–218. Sage Journals link.
Lynch, Kevin M., and Matthew T. Mason. “Stable Pushing: Mechanics, Controllability, and Planning.” International Journal of Robotics Research 15, no. 6 (December 1996): 533–556. Sage Journals link.
Lynch, Kevin M., and Matthew T. Mason. “Pulling by Pushing, Slip with Infinite Friction, and Perfectly Rough Surfaces.” International Journal of Robotics Research 14, no. 2 (April 1995): 174–183. Sage Journals link.
Wang, Yu, and Matthew T. Mason. “Two-Dimensional Rigid-Body Collisions with Friction.” ASME Journal of Applied Mechanics 59 (September 1992): 635–641. Link to ASME.
Christiansen, Alan D., Matthew T. Mason, and Tom M. Mitchell. “Learning Reliable Manipulation Strategies Without Initial Physical Models.” Robotics and Autonomous Systems 8 (1991): 7–18. Link to PDF.
Goldberg, Kenneth Y., and Matthew T. Mason. “Bayesian Grasping.” IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, May 1990. Link to PDF.
Erdmann, Michael A., and Matthew T. Mason. “An Exploration of Sensorless Manipulation.” IEEE Journal of Robotics and Automation 4, no. 4 (August 1988): 369–379. IEEE link
Mason, Matthew T., and Yu Wang. “On the Inconsistency of Rigid-Body Frictional Planar Mechanics.” In IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 524–528. 1988. IEEE link.
Taylor, Russell H., Matthew T. Mason, Kenneth Y. Goldberg. “Sensor-Based Manipulation Planning as a Game with Nature.” 4th International Symposium on Robotics Research, August 1987. Santa Barbara, CA. Robert Bolles and Bernard Roth, eds. MIT Press. Link to PDF
Mason, Matthew T. “Mechanics and Planning of Manipulator Pushing Operations.” International Journal of Robotics Research 5, no. 3 (Fall 1986): 53–71. Sage Journals link.
Mason, Matthew T. “The Mechanics of Manipulation.” In IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 544–548. 1985. IEEE link.
Lozano-Perez, Tomas, Matthew T. Mason, and Russell H. Taylor. “Automatic Synthesis of Fine-Motion Strategies for Robots.” International Journal of Robotics Research 3, no. 1 (1984). Sage Journals link.
Mason, Matthew T. “Compliance and Force Control for Computer-Controlled Manipulators.” IEEE Trans on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics 11, no. 6 (1981): 418–432. IEEE link.