Khatib, with Sean Quinlan, later proposed the elastic band model, which provided a robot planner with the ability to adjust and modify its planned motions during execution while efficiently detecting potential collisions using a sphere hierarchy.

Developed in 2013 by Samir Menon, Gerald Brantner, and Chris Aholt under Khatib's supervision, HFI is a Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) compatible haptic interface with three degrees-of-freedom.

[2] The interface allows subjects to perform virtual haptic tasks inside the entire bore of an MRI machine, and is lightweight and transparent to enable high fidelity neuroscience experiments.

Khatib's group has successfully demonstrated real-time closed-loop haptic control during a high resolution fMRI scan with low enough noise levels to enable single subject analyses without smoothing.

In 2018 Khatib was elected to the National Academy of Engineering for contributions to the understanding, analysis, control, and design of robotic systems operating in complex, unstructured, and dynamic environments.