Vijay Chandiramani

Email: ld19487@bristol.ac.uk

Supervisors: Andrew Conn, Helmut Hauser

PhD Project Title: ‘Improved robotic locomotion performance through morphological computation and active control’

Research Group: Softlab

Biography

I joined the FARSCOPE programme in September 2021, directly in the second year after completing my MSc Robotics from University of Bristol. I have entered academia after a rather long and fruitful career in the industry, culminating in leadership positions in the consulting industry, focused on transformation and automation in the public sector. My undergraduate degree was in Electronics Engineering, with specialisation in process control systems, at a time when Google, Amazon, LinkedIn founders’ were probably not even born, and having a Hotmail id was the coolest thing.

My MSc Dissertation was on optimising the performance of a legged locomotion robot and understanding the impact of a certain parameters.  The entire quadruped was simulated in Simscape with a high level of fidelity using real component and material properties, leading me into the world of dynamics, biomimetics, artificial muscles and tendons. My intention is to build on this research and work on multi-modal locomotion using an optimal combination of embodied / local intelligence and central control. I believe this will take me into the world of using AI / ML using minimal computing resources for an untethered system to work effectively. I am pleased to be working with Dr Andrew Conn and Dr Helmut Hauser as my co-supervisors.

My two other interests are golf, and teaching / mentoring young adults. It is interesting to understand the dynamics of the golf swing, especially after I realised that the best swing is when there is a ‘singularity’ in the RR planar 2 DoF robot with shoulder and elbow joints (can discuss over beer for those interested!). I am a visiting faculty and a mentor at my alumnus, a leading management institute in Mumbai, India. In addition, I completed the ‘Introduction to HE Teaching’ at UoB, and was pleased to be appointed as a Teaching Assistant for AI and Electromechanical Systems Design.

I am absolutely delighted and excited to be a part of Farscope, especially the broad-based multidisciplinary approach and cohort support.