LATEST NEWS

NEWS & UPDATES
Nov 2018: New Heterogeneous Robotics (HeRo) Lab website is up. Send me an email if you are interested in joining our reserach lab.
NEWS & UPDATES
Nov 2018: Our paper on multi-robot reactive planning got accepted into Multi-Robot Systems Conference to be held in Rutgers, NJ (Aug 2019)!
NEWS & UPDATES
Nov 2018: We hosted Prof. Leszek Gasieniec (University of Liverpool, UK) at UGA (Jan 2019).
NEWS & UPDATES
Nov 2018: Our paper on multi-robot rendezvous based on bearing-aided tracking of network topology is accepted in the Elsevier Adhoc Network journal
NEWS & UPDATES
Nov 2018: Received Google Cloud Education Grant
NEWS & UPDATES
Nov 2018: Received UGA - University of Liverpool Faculty Research Exchange Visit Grant
NEWS & UPDATES
Oct 2018: Our paper on multi-master ROS solution for multi-hop wireless networks got accepted in the Elsevier Robotics and Automation Systems journal
NEWS & UPDATES
Oct 2018: Our paper on classifying gesures using Wi-Fi signals on smartphone got accepted in the IEEE Sensors Journal
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Aug 2018: Our paper on "Multi-point Multi-Robot Rendezvous" got accepted in the IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics (IF: 8.8)
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Aug 2018: Our paper got accepted for oral presentation at the Distributed Autonomous Robotics Systesm (DARS) 2018 conference in Boulder, Colorado!
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Aug 2018: I have joined the University of Georgia (UGA) Department of Computer Science as an Assistant Professor with a specialization in Robotics.
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May-Dec 2018: I'm serving as a Guest Editor for the Technologies Journal special issue on Assistive Robotics. Please consider submitting your best paper!
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July 2018: Our paper got accepted to the IEEE Connected and Automated Vehicles Symp., associated with the IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference, to be held on 27-30 August 2018, Chicago, USA.
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June 2018: I gave a talk on "Herding Mobile Robots in Multiple Groups" at the Midwest Robotics Workshop 2018.
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Mar 2018: I gave a talk on the topic "Use of Wireless Network Measurements in Robotics" at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras.
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Feb 2018: Our paper got accepted to the Int. workshop on Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality for Human-Robot Interaction (VAM-HRI), associated with the IEEE HRI conference!
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Jan 2018: I gave a Seminar on the topic "Gaussian Processes Regression" to the members of the SMART lab at Purdue.
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July 2017: I've participated in the RSS Workshop on Robot Communications at MIT, Boston. We presented two posters on our works based on RCAMP and ROS-Pound.
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June 2017: Our paper on Resilient Communication Aware Motion Planner (RCAMP) got accepted to IROS 2017!
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May 2017: I've participated in the Mid-West Robotics Workshop held at TTI Chicago, with a poster presentation of our work "Multi-Robot Rendezvous".
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Apr 2017: I gave a guest lecture on the topic "Design Guidelines for Mobile Robotic Systems in Harsh Environments" in the course CNIT 581-008 - Software Design and Development for Robotics (2017 Spring).
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Mar-Apr 2017: I gave a Short Course on Robot Operating System (ROS) to the SMART lab graduate students. Link here.
NEWS & UPDATES
Oct 2016: I gave a guest lecture on the topic "Assistive Technologies for disabled - Mobility Enhancement" in the course CNIT 581-AST - Introduction to Assistive Technology and Robotics (2016 Fall).

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Research interests:
  • Networked Multi-Robot Systems
  • Intelligent Teleoperation
  • Robot Communications
  • Robotics in Nuclear Applications
  • Search and Rescue Robotics
  • Human-Robot interfaces
  • Machine Learning

Google Scholar profile
Research Gate profile

Welcome to my homepage!

I'm an Assistant Professor at University of Georgia (UGA) Department of Computer Science, with a focus on Robotics. I direct the Heterogeneous Robotics (HeRo) reserach lab. I'm a faculty fellow in the Faculty of Robotics and the Institute for Artificial Intelligence at UGA.


Previously, I was a Postdoctoral Associate at Purdue University, working with Prof. Byung-Cheol Min of SMART Lab on projects relevant to Networked Robotics and Assistive Technologies.


Before that, I was working as a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Robotics Perception and Learning (RPL) lab (previously Computer Vision and Active Perception lab) at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden with Prof. Petter Ogren. At KTH, I was involved in two European projects under EU-FP7 grants, TRADR and RECONFIG.


For my doctoral research, I worked at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research), Switzerland, conducting research in mobile robotics and received my Ph.D. (Robotics and Automation) from Universidad Politecnica de Madrid (UPM), Spain in Oct 2014. My Ph.D. thesis titled "Wireless communication enhancement methods for mobile robots in radiation environments" was on teleoperated mobile robots for radiation survey applications at CERN. I was part of the EU-ITN project PURESAFE as a Marie-Curie Early State Researcher. I had developed tools for optimizing and predicting wireless communication in mobile robots applied in hostile environmental conditions. While at CERN, I also led a part of the Robotic Train project (TIM - Train Inspection Monorail) for conducting radiation inspections at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

For full list of publication click here

Research

My research interests are the following:

  • Control and Communication of Heterogeneous Mobile Robots and Networked Multi-Robot Systems;
  • Machine Learning based Applications in Robotics and Wireless Communications (for perception, classification, and activity recognition).

Robot Control and Communication

Multi-point Rendezvous and Multi-Robot Herding: In this work, we introduce a coordinate-free multi-point rendezvous control strategy to enable multiple robots to gather at different locations by tracking their hierarchy in a connected interaction graph. A key novelty in this strategy is the gathering of robots in different groups rather than at a single consensus point, motivated by autonomous multi-point recharging and flocking control problems.

Multi-Robot Hierarchical Rendezvous Control: Using a hierarchical network topology tree, we devised a rendezvous control algorithm that can work on distributed fashion using the local sensing information at the robots, to collect all the robots rendezvous at a desired location in a hierarchical movement aided by the bearing-based source tracking of radio signals.

Resilient Communication-Aware Motion Planner (RCAMP) (with Sergio Caccamo): We developed a resilient motion planner for mobile robots to find an optimal path that guarantees traversability and wireless connectivity. The RCAMP can also be used to re-establish the wireless connection in case of a communication loss with a mobile robot.

Human-Robot Interface (HRI) for Wireless Network Connectivity Situation Awareness in UGV Teleoperation (with Sergio Caccamo): We extended a UGV Teleoperation Interface called Free Look Control (FLC) with the Wireless Network Connectivity Information. We used directional antennas to obtain the Direction of Arrival (DOA) (or gradients) of the Wi-Fi Received Signal Strength. Using this DoA we devised a Human-Robot Interface (HRI) that can support a teleoperator with Situation Awareness (SA) on wireless connectivity.

Machine Learning

Wisture - A Solution for Gesture detection in smartphones using WiFi signals (with Mohamed Haseeb): Wisture is a new online machine learning solution for recognizing touch-less dynamic hand gestures on a smartphone. Wisture relies on the standard Wi-Fi Received Signal Strength (RSS) using a Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) Recurrent Neural Network (RNN), thresholding filters and an artificial traffic induction approach. Look at the Codes and Datasets page for more information on the Wisture.

Gaussian Processes based Radio Signal Strength Prediction on Mobile Robots: We used Gaussian Process Regression to predict spatial changes in the RSS on the path of a mobile robot. The solution is composed of two stages. First, the location of radio signal source is predicted using a grid-based RSS gradient estimation method. Second, an online iterative Gaussian Process Regression (GPR) solution is used to predict the RSS in the future robot positions with reference to the current position of the robot.

Reinforcement Learning of Behavior Trees using Genetic Programming (with Michele Collendanchise): Taking advantage of modularity and reactiveness of Behavior Trees, we propose a model-free Automated Planned framework using Genetic Programming to derive an action plan for an autonomous agent to achieve a given goal in unknown environments. The advantages of the proposed approach are based on the advantages of BT over Finite State Machines. In particular, our approach avoids the problem of logic violation during the learning process.

Teaching

Fall 2020: CSCI (ARTI) 4530/6530 Introduction to Robotics course.


Spring 2020: CSCI 8535 Multi Robot Systems course for Graduate students.


Fall 2019: CSCI (ARTI) 4530/6530 Introduction to Robotics course.


Spring 2019: CSCI 8535 Multi Robot System course at UGA.


Fall 2018: CSCI (ARTI) 4530/6530 Introduction to Robotics course at UGA.



Previously, I was the course responsible and teacher of the masters-level course "EL2310: Scientific Programming" in Fall 2015 (with Dr.Yasemin Bokiroglu) and in Fall 2016 (with Dr.Hakan Karao) at KTH. The goal of this course is to provide the participants with a basic knowledge of programming in general and specifically in MATLAB, C and C++. The course materials, lecture notes, and schedule can be accessed here..

Guest Lecturers and Short Courses:

I occasionally provide guest lectures and short courses at Purdue University.

Talks and Invited Seminars:

Below is a maps list of invited talks and seminars.

Supervision

Current students (as a mentor):

  • Shaocheng Luo, Ph.D. student, Purdue University
  • Jun-Han Bae, Ph.D. Student, Purdue University
  • Wonse Jo, Ph.D. student, Purdue University
  • Arabindha Samantaray, MS student, Purdue University
  • Yeonju Oh, MS student, Purdue University
  • Shyam Sundar Kannan, MS Student, Purdue University

Past students

  • Mohamed Abdulaziz Ali Haseeb, M.Sc. student - KTH, (main supervisor: Ramviyas Parasuraman, co-supervisor: Petter Ogren). Thesis: Gesture detection on smartphones using wireless signals  - Fall 2016. Now with Watty, Sweden.
  • Mengchan Li, M.Sc. student - KTH, (main supervisor: Ramviyas Parasuraman, co-supervisor: Petter Ogren). Thesis: Spatial Wireless Connectivity Prediction for Mobile Robots - Fall 2015. Now with A.O.Smith, China.
  • Luca Molinari, M.Sc. student - University of Genoa & CERN (as a mentor), Thesis: Wireless relay robot architecture - Spring 2014. Now with CERN.

Heterogeneous Robotics (HeRo) Research Lab

I'm currently establishing a new Heterogeneous Robotics (HeRo) Research Lab at UGA. Website of the lab: hero.uga.edu



Recruiting Students:

I am looking for highly motivated undergraduate and graduate students with research interests in Heterogeneous Multi-Robot Systems. Please send me an email with a breif statement of interest and your CV, if you are interested in working with me!

Contact

ramviyas at uga dot edu


Phone: (706) 542 2911


Office: 803 Boyd Graduate Studies Research Center, Department of Computer Science, University of Georgia,Athens, GA 30602, USA


Director, HeRoLab - Heterogeneous Robotics Laboratory , Lab: 427-437 Stageman Coliseum Basketball Stadium. University of Georgia,Athens, GA 30602, USA