Hello! I’m a 2nd year Robotics PhD student working with Prof. Shreyas Kousik in the Safe Robotics Lab at Georgia Tech. I’m interested in safe robot manipulations in critical scenarios and complex environments.

Previously, I studied at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where I obtained a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering (project advisor: Prof. Sergio Pequito) in 2021 and an M.S. in Electrical Engineering (thesis advisor: Prof. John T. Wen) in 2023. My master’s thesis involved a collaborative project with Mitsubishi Electric Research Lab. A patent for the resulting mechatronic device was granted, and the thesis can be found here.

Research Interest

Most robots, unlike humans or animals, are not equipped with compliant exterior structures such as skin or soft tissues. Consequently, robots are typically very sensitive to collisions with their environment, other robots, and even themselves. While current safety criteria in both research and industry revolve around collision avoidance, I believe we can leverage the accuracy and repeatability of robot arms to engage in safe contact.

I’m currently exploring whether an effective partnership between reachability-based planning algorithms and innovative hardware design and sensing could enable robots to operate autonomously with safety guarantees in critical scenarios and complex environments.

In addition, my background in mechanical engineering has given me a strong passion for rigid body dynamics. My wish is to create a motion planning algorithm that enables robots to operate near their performance limits while ensuring safety guarantees.

Recent News

[2025 April] Our newly built bi-manual dual-KINOVA3 robot is fully assembled and live. Its digital twin built with Robosuite v1.5 is available here with Meta Quest3 Dual-arm teleoperation supported.

[2025 January] Our work Towards Closing the Loop in Robotic Pollination for Indoor Farming via Autonomous Microscopic Inspection has been accepted by ICRA 2025 happening in Atlanta GA!

[2024 September] We posted our recent paper on autonoumus indoor stawberry pollination on Arxiv.

[2024 July] Shreyas and Kong presented the strawberry pollination robot at the USDA CEA Workshop.

[2024 May] PARC paper accepted to Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS)!

[2024 April] I successfully passed my PhD Qualifying Exam.