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Rohan Thakker

Address:

4800 Oak Grove Drive
M/S 107-101

Pasadena, CA 91101

Website:

Click here

Member of:

347T - Aerial Mobility

Rohan Thakker

Robotics Technologist

Education

[2016] M.S. in Robotic Systems Development from Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). Worked with Dr. Siddhartha Srinivasa and Dr. Koushil Shreenath

[2014] B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering from Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology (VNIT), Nagpur, India. Worked with Dr. Shital Chiddarwar

Professional Experience

[March 2017-Current] Robotics Technologist at Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) / CalTech

[Summer 2016] Intern at Qualcomm Research Philadelphia (QRP; Formerly KMel Robotics)

[2014-2015] R&D Engineer at Systemantics Pvt. Ltd., Bangalore, India

[Summer 2013] Research Intern with Dr. Howie Choset at Biorobotics Lab, Carnegie Mellon University

[Summer 2012] Research Intern with Dr. C. Amarnath at Indian Insititue of Technology Bombay

Research Interests

I am interested in developing algorithms/robotic systems that tightly couple motion planning, controls/estimation and computer vision together.

Publications

2024
  1. T. S. Vaquero, G. Daddi, R. Thakker, M. Paton, A. Jasour, M. Strub, R. M. Swan, R. Royce, M. Gildner, P. Tosi, M. Veismann, P. Gavrilov, E. Marteau, J. Bowkett, D. Loret de Mola Lemus, Y. Kumar Nakka, B. Hockman, A. Orekhov, T. Hasseler, C. Leake, B. Nuernberger, P. Proenca, W. Reid, W. Talbot, N. Georgiev, T. Pailevanian, A. Archanian, E. Ambrose, J. Jasper, R. Etheredge, C. Roman, D. Levine, K. Otsu, S. Yearicks, H. Melikyan, R. Rieber, K. Carpenter, J. Nash, A. Jain, L. Shiraishi, M. Robinson, M. Travers, H. Choset, J. Burdick, A. Gardner, M. Cable, M. Ingham, and M. Ono, "EELS: Autonomous Snake-like Robot with Task and Motion Planning Capabilities for Ice World Exploration," Science Robotics, vol. 9, no. 88, 13 March 2024.
  2. M. Paton, R. Rieber, S. Cruz, M. Gildner, C. Abma, K. Abma, S. Aghli, E. Ambrose, A. Archanian, E. Bagshaw, C. Baroco, A. Blackstock, J. Bowkett, M. Cable, E. Cartaya, G. Daddi, T. Drevinskas, R. Etheredge, T. Gall, A. Gardner, P. Gavrilov, N. Georgiev, K. Graham, B. Hockman, B. Jones, S. Linn, M. Malaska, E. Marteau, N. Maslen, H. Melikyan, Y. Kumar Nakka, J. Nelson, M. Pazzini, M. Peticco, M. Prior-Jones, M. Robinson, C. Roman, R. Royce, M. Ryan, L. Shiraishi, C. Stenner, M. Strub, R. M. Swan, B. Swerdlow, R. Thakker, L. P. Tosi, T. Tran, T. Stegun Vaquero, M. Veismann, T. Wood, H. Zade, M. Ono, "2023 EELS Field Tests at Athabasca Glacier as an Icy Moon Analogue Environment," 2024 IEEE Aerospace Conference, Big Sky, MT, USA, 05 March 2024.
  3. M. Ono, R. Thakker, N. Georgiev, P. Gavrilov, A. Archanian, T. Drevinskas, G. Daddi, M. Paton, H. Melikyan, T. Pailevanian, C. Lopez, E. Ambrose, B. Jones, L. Tosi, M. Gildner, B. Hockman, D. Loret de Mola Lemus, D. Pastor Moreno, T. Hasseler, Y. Kumar Nakka, E. Marteau, B. Nuernberger, M. Peticco, M. Cable, P. Proenca, M. Malaska, J. Bowkett, A. Jasour, M. Ingham, J. Nash, D. Balentine, A. Barchowsky, F. Bevreng, K. Botteon, M. Caballero, K. Carpenter, M. Chodas, A. Daca, J. Feldman, A. Gardner, A. Goddu, A. Jain, C. Jin, M. Khanum, R. Kornfeld, G. Mark, B. Morrell, J. Naish, W. Reid and R. Etheredge, "To Boldly Go Where No Robots Have Gone Before – Part 1: EELS Robot to Spearhead a New One-Shot Exploration Paradigm with In-situ Adaptation," AIAA Scitech 2024 Forum, Orlando, Florida, USA, pp. 1-23, 08 January 2024.
  4. R. Thakker, M. Paton, M. Strub, M. Swan, T. Vaquero, B. Jones, G. Daddi, R. Royce, J. Bowkett, D. Loret de Mola Lemus, D. Pastor Moreno, Y. Kumar Nakka, K. Otsu, T. Hasseler, C. Leake, B. Nuernberger, P. Proenca, W. Talbot, A. Orekhov, A. Jain, M. Robinson, R. Etheredge, M. Travers, H. Choset, M. Ingham, J. Burdick and M. Ono, "To Boldly Go Where No Robots Have Gone Before – Part 4: NEO Autonomy for Robustly Exploring Unknown, Extreme Environments with Versatile Robots," AIAA Scitech 2024 Forum, Orlando, Florida, USA, pp. 1-14, 08 January 2024.
2023
  1. W. Talbot, J. Nash, M. Paton, E. Ambrose, B. Metz, R. Thakker, R. Etheredge, M. Ono, V. Ila, "Principled ICP Covariance Modelling in Perceptually Degraded Environments for the EELS Mission Concept," 2023 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), pp. 10763-10770, 01 October 2023.
  2. J. Bowkett, D. Kim, J. Nash, D. Moreno, M. Gildner, R. Thakker, K. Wehage, S. Kim, A. Brinkman, B. Emanuel, J. Edlund, B. Ridge, A. Jain, and P. Backes, "Demonstration of Autonomous Sampling Techniques in an Icy Moon Terrestrial Analog," 2023 IEEE Aerospace Conference, pp. 1-5, 04 March 2023.
2022
  1. K. Hand, C. Phillips, A. Murray, et al., "Science Goals and Mission Architecture of the Europa Lander Mission Concept," The Planetary Science Journal, vol. 3, iss. 1, 26 January 2022.
2021
  1. H. Zade, A. Varude, K. Pandya, A. Kamat, S. Chiddarwar, R. Thakker, "ReQuBiS - Reconfigurable Quadrupedal-Bipedal Snake Robots," 2021 IEEE 17th International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (CASE), Lyon, France, pp. 2241-2246, 23 August 2021.
  2. Ali-akbar Agha-mohammadi, et al., "NeBula: Quest for Robotic Autonomy in Challenging Environments; TEAM CoSTAR at the DARPA Subterranean Challenge," Journal of Field Robotics, 21 March 2021.
  3. J. Bowkett, J. Nash, D. Inkyu Kim, S. Kim, R. Thakker, A. Brinkman, Y. Cheng, R. Wilson, C. Lim, A. Gaut, A. Jain, M. Gildner, B. Emanuel, P. Backes, "Functional Autonomy Challenges in Sampling for an Europa Lander Mission," 2021 IEEE Aerospace Conference (50100), Big Sky, MT, USA, pp. 1-8, 06 March 2021.
  4. K. Carpenter, M. Cable, M. Choukroun, H. Ono, R. Thakker, M. Ingham, P. McGarey, A. Barchowski, S. Iacoponi, J. Bowkett, W. Reid, E. Marteou, "Venture Deep, the Path of Least Resistance: Crevasse-Based Ocean Access Without the Need to Dig or Drill," Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, vol. 53, no. 4, pp. 356, 01 January 2021.
2020
  1. C. Ordonez, R. Alicea, B. Rothrock, K. Ladyko, J. Nash, R. Thakker, S. Daftry, M. Harper, E. Collins and L. Matthies, "Characterization and Traversal of Pliable Vegetation for Robot Navigation," Proceedings of the 2018 International Symposium on Experimental Robotics, pp. 293–304, 23 January 2020.