I am a PhD candidate in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. My advisor is Dr. Girish Krishnan in the Monolithic Systems Lab. I am also a member of the Artificial Intelligence for Future Agricultural Resilience, Management, and Sustainability Institute (AIFARMS) at UIUC.
Research interest
I work in robotics and autonomy. I am currently interested in object manipulation and grasping. My focus is on grasp stability and slip detection in agricultural work. I am also interested in the design and control of soft manipulators. My previous work has included pre-touch sensing in occluded, cluttered environments.
Publications
- N. K. Uppalapati, B. T. Walt, A. Havens, A. Mahdian, G. Chowdhary, and G. Krishnan, “A Berry Picking Robot With A Hybrid Soft-Rigid Arm: Design and Task Space Control,” in Robotics: Science and Systems Foundation, 2020. (Link)(Link to pdf)
- S. K. Kamtikar, S. Marri, B. T. Walt, N. K. Uppalapati, G. Krishnan, and G. Chowdhary, “Visual Servoing for Pose Control of Soft Continuum Arm in a Structured Environment,” in IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 2022. DOI: 10.1109/LRA.2022.3155821 (IEEE Link)(Arxiv)
Teaching
- ECE 470: Introduction to Robotics – Fall 2018 to Fall 2020 (Link to student resources)
- ME 170: Computer-aided Design – Fall 2022
Other
ME Qualification Exam Notes from May 2022