Curriculum Vitae
I am an Assistant Professor at the Engineering Design Department, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. My research interests include Mechatronics system design and integration, dynamic modelling, control, and path planning for mobile robots. Click here for one page resume
Education
|
Degree |
University |
Department |
CGPA |
|
PhD (Grad.- October 2019) |
Mechanical Engineering |
3.9/4.0 |
|
|
M.Tech (Grad. – May 2015) |
Mechatronics |
9.45/10 |
|
| B.Tech (Grad. – May 2013) | University of Kerala, India |
Mechanical Engineering |
9.03/10 |
Industrial Experience
Product Owner & Software Engineer
[November 2019 – November 2021]
I was responsible for software development along with engineering activities to support delivery of the Level 4 Autonomy Stack as part of overall system solution. From a software development standpoint this involved developing algorithms to handle high level decision making, path planning and motion control. From an engineering standpoint this involved identifying benchmark tests, deploying and testing the algorithm performance in real world conditions and adding new capabilities to meet the autonomous navigation requirements.
Research Experience
Graduate Research Assistant
[January 2016 – November 2019]
Robotics & Mechatronics Lab, Virginia Tech
- Semi-Autonomous Victim Extraction Robot: Novel design for a robotic system capable of extracting an injured person from a disaster or war scenario and then evacuate them to a safe location for further medical attention. Conceptual design of the proposed system along with overall casualty extraction procedure was developed. A US provisional patent has been filed on this design. The proposed system is designed for tele-operated victim extraction where a human operator would send high level commands to the robot from a remote location in order to facilitate safe human victim interaction.
- Techniques to improve tracked locomotion in challenging conditions: Tracked vehicles are widely used for applications in challenging terrain conditions especially for search and rescue in disaster scenarios. Autonomous or semi-autonomous operation of these systems require accurate traversability estimation, ability to counteract the effects of varying sip and terrain identification. All of the above sub problems were addressed as part of my PhD dissertation. In addition, the applicability of the above techniques in improving tele-operation of robotic systems is being explored.
- Development of a haptic glove mechanism: The proposed exoskeleton glove is a lightweight, portable and self-contained mechatronic system which fits on a bare hand. It provides force feedback to each finger of the hand without constraining their movement. A US provisional patent has been filed on the developed design. Applications of the developed system include rehabilitation as hand orthosis, providing medical training, and mobile robot teleportation using the haptic force feedback capabilities to augment telepresence.
Project Fellow
[June 2014 – November 2015]
Surface Robotics Lab, CSIR – CMERI
- Design, analysis and development of climbing robot: The proposed system was developed for horticultural and pipeline inspection applications. A novel design was developed and validated through ADAMS – MATLAB Co – Simulation. Detailed kinematic and dynamic analysis of the system was performed along with developing inverse kinematic model for the arms on the system. A complete prototype was integrated with actuators, sensors, and necessary control software in order to make the prototype fully operational. In addition, experimental validation of the proposed design and climbing strategies were also performed.
- Validation of Navigational algorithms on PIONEER P3-AT platform –Combining various algorithms for path planning and SLAM along with control strategies for obstacle avoidance and goal seeking in order to create a single navigation module. The navigation module consists of a hybrid controller at the bottom, running alongside SLAM routines and an AI planner at the top. The algorithms were tested in simulators including VREP and MobileSim and finally on an actual PIONEER P3-AT platform.
- Automated mechanism for plate washing – A novel design capable of scrubbing the plate while washing it. The proposed idea was developed into a prototype which could be commercialized. A design registration has been filed on the same under CSIR.
- Design of a spherical robot with simplified drive mechanism – A modified pendulum drive system was designed for driving a spherical robot. The proposed drive system essentially consists of two motors and an attached mass. This design is much simpler and more versatile than the existing spherical robot designs. The project is now being considered under Cluster Innovation Center, CMERI for institutional funding.
- Point Cloud Processing using Microsoft Kinect – 3-D point cloud and color image obtained using Kinect were used for 3D mapping. The point cloud data was meshed and registered, along with color to produce realistic rendering. The various methods of image registration were also looked into. The work was done in C++ as part of my term paper for the course of Computer vision.
Selected publications
- Sebastian, B., Ben-Tzvi, P., “Physics Based Path Planning for Autonomous Tracked Vehicle in Challenging Terrain,” Journal of Intelligent and Robotic Systems, Published online, April 2018.
- Sebastian, B., Ben-Tzvi, P., “Active disturbance rejection control for handling slip in tracked vehicle locomotion“, Journal of Mechanisms and Robotics, Transactions of the ASME, Vol. 11, Issue 2, pp. 021003:1-12, April 2019.
- Williams, A., Sebastian, B., Ben-Tzvi, P., “Review and Analysis of Search, Extraction, Evacuation, and Medical Treatment Field Robots“, Journal of Intelligent and Robotic Systems, Published online, February 2019.
- Williams, A., Sebastian, B., Ben-Tzvi, P., “A Robotic Head Stabilization Mechanism for Medical Transport“,Robotics Journal, Vol. 8, Issue 1, pp. 1-16, March 2019.
- Refour, E., Sebastian, B., Ben-Tzvi, P., “Two-Digit Robotic Exoskeleton Glove Mechanism: Design and Integration,” Journal of Mechanisms and Robotics, Transactions of the ASME, Vol. 10, Issue 2, pp. 025002: 1-9, April 2018.
- Refour, E., Sebastian, B., Ben-Tzvi, P., “Design and Implementation of an Exoskeleton Glove for Infant Medical Rehabilitation“, Proceedings of the 2018 ASME IDETC/CIE, 42nd Mechanisms & Robotics Conference, Quebec City, Canada, Aug. 26-29, 2018.
- Bijo Sebastian, Dip Narayan Ray, and S. Majumder., “Design, analysis and development of pipeline inspection robot“, 2nd International and 17th National Conference on Machines and Mechanisms, IIT Kanpur, India. 16th to 19th December, 2015.
For the complete list of publication please refer to my Google Scholar profile.
Patents
- Ben-Tzvi, P., Williams, A., Sebastian, B., Kumar, A., Saab, W., “Semi-Autonomous Victim Extraction Robot (SAVER)”, U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 62/660,869, April 20, 2018.
- Ben-Tzvi, P., Sebastian, B., “Haptic Robotic Glove Exoskeleton with Sensing and Force Feedback”, U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 62/510,427, May 24, 2017.
Honors and Awards
- Junior Research Fellowship – Project Fellow (June 2014 – December 2015) Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, Government of India.
- AugHit, Second prize: Image processing and robotics competition (Kshitij – 2015),Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur: January 2015
- IDEATION Contest – Certificate of Merit: TePP Outreach and Cluster Innovation Center, CSIR-CMERI, July 2014
- Student Mechanism Design Contest – First Prize: 1st International Conference on Machines and Mechanisms (iNaCoMM 2013), Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee; December 2013
- Col. P. Vaidyanathan Memorial Endowment and K. Thomas Kora Memorial Award – Best Outgoing Mechanical Engineering Student: College of Engineering, Thiruananthapuram, India; March 2013
Skills
Programming: Python, C++, MATLAB/Simulink
CAD: SolidWorks, Autodesk Eagle, PTC Pro/ENGINEER, 3D Printing
Simulation: Gazebo, Pybullet, V-REP, MSC ADAMS
Others: ROS, OpenCV, Scikit-learn, Git, Latex
Bijo Sebastian 