Team Members

Prof. Laxmidhar Behera is the inspiration behind our team. It was his enthusiasm and encouragement which made it possible for so many people to work together. He is a full-time professor at IIT Kanpur. He has more than two decades of experience of working in the area of robotics. He has published more than 200+ papers in journals and conferences. He is the de facto leader of the IITK-TCS team in spite of being the official one.

Anima is a researcher at TCS. She obtained her PhD degree from IIT Kanpur under the guidance of Prof. Behera. In her PhD thesis, she worked on Face Recognition algorithms. Currently she is exploring deep learning methods for improving the object recognition accuracy. While not doing research, she could be spotted running around her two year old hyperactive daughter who would otherwise bring the world down if left unattended.

Manish graduated from IIT Jodhpur with a Bachelor's degree in EE before joining TCS Innovation Lab at New Delhi. He is a recipient of Director's Gold Medal for outstanding academic performance in his Bachelor's programme. He works with Sharath and is responsible for system integration, motion planning and improving system performance. He wants to have some hands on experience before pursuing PhD from some cool university abroad.

Olyvia is developing grasping and pose detection algorithms that would enable our robot to pick things from a rack. She graduated from IIT Guwahati with a master's degree and currently working as a researcher at TCS Innovation Labs, New Delhi.

Samrat is a senior PhD student at IIT Kanpur. He is close to submitting his PhD thesis. In his PhD research, he has explored teaching by demonstration paradigm using learning and probabilistic methods. He is leading the IIT team for motion planning algorithms.

Prof. K. S. Venkatesh is a professor at IIT Kanpur. He is the brain behind our computer vision team. His child like curiosity and relentless energy for trying out new ideas are something which is rare to find in people of his age. Apart from his academic skills, he is known for his witty remarks, tenacious debating spirit and vast knowledge of global affairs.

Venkat is our mechanical designer and embedded system engineer expert who is responsible for developing specialized grippers that would help us in picking things with greater precision. He plans to combine suction with gripping to make it happen. He is running around all over the country to get his gripper manufactured and assembled in time. He is a technical lead at TCS Innovation Labs in Bangalore and loves to drive around in his SUV.

Ankita is a researcher at TCS Innovation Lab in New Delhi. She graduated from IIIT Delhi with a master's degree. She is exploring various deep learning architecture for detecting grasp pose and graspable affordances. Need to ask her about hobbies though.

Ashish received his Master's degree from IIT Kanpur. His core research area is in computer vision and robotics. He is looking forward to working at a top notch research institute in US and dreams about being a space traveller someday.

Rajesh is an industry veteran with at least 20 years of experience in product development at several software companies. He is currently heading the smart machine programme at TCS Research responsible for commercializing some of the research outcomes of the labs. These wide accomplishments and vast experience, however, does not stop him for mingling with lesser folks like us. He not only provides necessary financial and administrative support for this project, but also provides key guidance for improving the system performance.

Hassan obtained his PhD degree from IIT Delhi. He currently heads the computer vision research group at TCS innovation labs in New Delhi. He is an avid cricket fan and goes at length in explaining various intricate details of how the game is played.

Komal is mostly a self-made engineer with a knack for machines. He has been an entrepreneur in the past and has very good practical understanding of electronics and embedded systems. Currently, he is working as a project engineer at IIT Kanpur and helping the team in preparing for the competition. It seems he is developing aptitude for higher research in the process.

Ravi is a PhD student at IIT Kanpur. He is focusing on developing new motion planning algorithms for robot manipulators. Apart from being a good researcher, he is also a good cook. Many of us can not forget his contribution towards keeping us alive during the last year's competition at Germany.

Prasun has a bachelor's degree in ECE from West Bengal and is with TCS for last 3 years. He has been working in the area of cloud robotics for last one year. He has been pulled in recently to help us in implementing the SMACH-ROS architecture for our system. When he is not coding, he carries out many administrative tasks on my behalf. If you need something done in the lab, he is the guy you need to seek out.

Nishant obtained his bachelor's degree in Computer Science from IIT Jodhpur. He recently joined Hi-Tech Robotics after working for about four years at TCS. He was a key member for IITK-TCS team last year. He still provides guidance and suggestion from time to time. It seems, he can't get rid of us so easily !!

Siddharth is the new kid on the block trying to cope with the eccentricities of the grown ups. He obtained his Bachelor's degree from NIT Warangal and currently he is a MS student at IIT Kanpur. He is working with Ashish and Anima on object recognition. In spite of his busy schedule, he still manages to take out time to learn Indian flute and play video games.

Swagat obtained his PhD from IIT Kanpur under the guidance of Prof. Behera. His PhD thesis focused on visuo-motor coordination. Currently, he works with the robotics research group at TCS. Apart from providing unsolicited and useless ideas to his team members, he coordinates activities among different groups.