Curriculum Vitae
Education
- M.S. in Aerospace Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), Dec. 2023
- Specialization: Robotics, Dynamical and Control Systems
- B.E. in Mechanical Engineering, Vishweshwaraiah Technological University (VTU), 2021
Research Experience
- September 2022 - December 2023: Researcher - GitHub
- University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
- Duties included:
- Collaborated in the ”Intelligent Robotics Group” under the guidance of Dr. Timothy Bretl and Holly Dinkel, contributing to the NASA-funded ”Astrobee Robot Challenge”. This project involved the development of a dual-arm robotic system designed to identify and manipulate wires on the International Space Station (ISS).
- Enhanced the Robot Operating System (ROS) drivers for ABB IRB 120 robotic arms, enabling the simultaneous execution of independent trajectories for both arms.
- Leveraged the MoveIt motion planning tool to simulate the arm trajectory, followed by validation using the physical arms.
- Built a comprehensive framework for utilizing industrial robots within a multi-arm setup.
- Performed extrinsic camera calibration for robot base-to-base transformations employing probabilistic methods and geometric algebra techniques in computer vision.
- Created a custom C++ package [GitHub] for executing extrinsic camera calibration using probabilistic approaches.
- Worked on 6D pose estimation using RGB+D cameras and conducted both simultaneous and non-simultaneous calibration for multiple robots.
- Created a pipeline for validating robot-robot calibration and extrinsic camera calibration.
- Building a pipeline for perception, tracking, motion planning and manipulation of deformable objects.
- Worked on synthetic data generation for deformable objects using NVIDIA IsaacSim.
Work Experience
- Summer 2023: Research Intern
- National University of Singapore (NUS)
- Duties included:
- Collaborating within the ”Robot and Protein Kinematics Laboratory (RPK)” under the supervision of Dr. Gregory Chirikjian and Dr. Sipu Ruan, focusing on aspects of robotic calibration, perception, planning, manipulation, and control.
- Developed a C++ package for the calibration and evaluation of robot hand-eye and robot-world interaction.
- Currently engaged in work on sampling-based planners such as probabilistic roadmaps and highway roadmaps, with a particular focus on the ”narrow passage” issue.
- Contributed to the development and refinement of the Highway Roadmap (HRM) planning codebase.
- Actively integrating high-level task planning into PRIMP (Probabilistically-Informed Motion Planning) and investigating potential research directions involving Learning from Demonstration (LfD) methods and sample-based planners.
- Undertaking work on primitive-based representation for 3D scene and object representation for shape abstraction.This involves utilizing the Marching Primitives methodology developed by the lab and incorporating new scenes into the HRM planner based on superquadrics derived from the Marching Primitives research.
- Summer 2021: Research Intern
- Indian Institute of Science (IISc)
- Duties included:
- Worked within the Department of Aerospace Engineer, focusing on the design and development of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
- Flying wing UAV - Design & development, stealth characteristics, CFRP and FRP manufacturing.
- Amphibious UAV - Performance & stability analysis, structural design & fabrication.
- Undertook static propulsion testing for both gas turbines and piston engines.
- Worked on avionics integration and modular servo holder design.
Projects
- Autonomous Precision Landing of Model Rockets - GitHub (Bachelor’s Thesis)
- Worked on detail design and development of rocket body and thrust vector control (TVC) system.
- Worked on aerodynamic, performance and stability analysis.
- Built a mathematical model to represent the dynamics of the rocket.
- Developed a PID and LQR-based controller to regulate attitude, altitude, and drift.
- Balancing an Inverted Pendulum on a Cart - GitHub
- Explored classical control approach to stabilize the inverted pendulum.
- Designed a Proportional Integral Derivative (PID) controller, a Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR) for position and orientation control, and integrated a Kalman Filter for state estimation.
- Physical modeling of the inverted pendulum using Simscape.
- Grid World problem using Reinforcement Learning - GitHub
- An archetype problem to learn and understand basics of reinforcement learning.
- Established Markov states and used dynamic programming - value iteration method.
- Implemented and solved the problem on python using OOP concepts.
- Simulation of Kármán Vortex Street of Bluff Bodies for Piezoelectric Energy Harvesters - GitHub
- Worked on the dynamics of coupled fluid-solid interaction, flow separation & boundary layer theory.
- Analyzed the effects of von Kármán vortex street on bluff bodies.
- Explored the possibilities of extracting energy from vortex induced vibrations on a piezoelectric material.
Extracurricular Activities
- 2019 - 20: Team Manager
- Team Arcis (Aero Design Student Club)
- Duties included:
- Planning, logistics, organizing and execution.
- Initiated participation of the team in AIAA – DBF.
- Writing technical design report.
- Co-starting a Research and Innovation Lab.
- Co-building a subsonic wind tunnel.
- 2017 - 19: Technical Engineer
- Team Arcis (Aero Design Student Club)
- Duties included:
- Writing technical design report and making technical presentation.
- Design, fabrication and testing of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
- Experimental aircraft configuration - development & testing.
Skills
Software Tools
- Bash, XML, Linux, Git Version Control
- ROS (RViz, tf2, rqt) $\vert$ MoveIt $\vert$ IsaacSim $\vert$ NVIDIA Omniverse
- C++ (OpenCV, PCL, Eigen) $\vert$ CMake (Build System) $\vert$ Python $\vert$ PyTorch
- MATLAB & Simulink (Control Systems Toolbox)
- Catia V5 $\vert$ SolidWorks $\vert$ Fusion 360 $\vert$ Blender
- LaTeX
Technical
- Robotics:
- Computer Vision - Perception and Motion Planning
- Sensor and robot calibration
- Control Theory:
- Classical and modern control - PID, LQR, MPC
- Convex optimization
- Multi-agent control and Game Theory
- Aircraft Dynamics:
- 6DoF Modeling & Simulation - Euler & Quaternion methods
- Machine Learning:
- Reinforcement Learning, Deep learning, CNN, RNN, LSTM
- Scientific Computing:
- Dimensionality reduction, SVD, PCA
- Fluid Dynamics:
- Finite wing theory $\vert$ Theory of Wing Sections
Achievements
- 2021: Best Project Award from DSCE (Bachelor’s thesis)
- 2020: 2nd Place in Overall SAE Aero Design West
- 2019: 1st Place in Technical Presentation SAE Aero Design West
Courses
- Reinforcement Learning: DeepMind
- Deep Learning Specialization: deeplearning.ai
- Machine Learning: Stanford University
- Fundamentals of Fluid-Solid Interaction:: École Polytechnique
- Design of Fixed Wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: IIT Kanpur