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Shreyansh Daftry

Address:

4800 Oak Grove Drive
M/S 198-219

Pasadena, CA 91109

Member of:

347J - Perception Systems

Shreyansh Daftry

Group Leader

Biography

Shreyansh Daftry is a Group Leader and Robotics Technologist in the Perception Systems group at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), working at the intersection of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Space Technology to help develop the next generation of autonomous robots for Earth, Moon, Mars and beyond. Prior to joining JPL, he received his M.S. degree in AI and Robotics from the Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, and his B.S. degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering from Manipal University, India.

At JPL, he currently serves as the Chief Engineer on LunarNav - a NASA Game Changing Development (GCD) project developing advanced navigation algorithms for lunar rovers, works on the Mars Sample Return mission, and has led/contributed to several technology development efforts for autonomous navigation of ground, airborne and subterranean robots. Shreyansh has received numerous awards and honors, including the NASA Space Act Award and the JPL Software of the Year award, for his technical contributions to Mars exploration.

Education

  • M.S. in Robotics, Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, USA, 2016
  • B.S. in Electronics and Communication Engineering, Manipal University, India, 2013

Professional Experience

  • Robotics Technologist, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, USA (2016-present)
  • Visiting Researcher, California Institute of Technology, USA (2020-present)
  • Research Engineer, Institute of Computer Graphics and Vision, TU Graz, Austria (2013-2014)

Research Interests

  • Machine Learning - Reinforcement Learning, Meta Learning, Verifiable ML, Explainable AI
  • Computer Vision - Semantic Scene Understanding, Object Detection, 3D Perception, Vision in Dark
  • Robotics - Vision-based Localization and State Estimation, Motion Planning and Navigation
  • Systems Engineering - System design, Assured Autonomy, Mission Formulation

See full list of publications on Google Scholar

Awards

  • JPL Voyager Award, 2022
  • JPL Voyager Award, 2021
  • NASA Space Act Award, 2020
  • JPL Software of the Year Award, 2020

Publications

2023
  1. Abhishek Cauligi, R. Michael Swan, Masahiro Ono, Shreyansh Daftry, John Elliott, Larry Matthies, Deegan Atha, "ShadowNav: Crater-Based Localization for Nighttime and Permanently Shadowed Region Lunar Navigation," IEEE Aerospace Conference, Big Sky, MT, 04 March 2023.
  2. Shreyansh Daftry, Zhanlin Chen, Yang Cheng, Scott Tepsuporn, Brian Coltin, Ussama Naal, Lanssie Mingyue Ma, Shehryar Khattak, Matthew Deans, Larry Matthies, "LunarNav: Crater-based Localization for Long-range Autonomous Lunar Rover Navigation," IEEE Aerospace Conference, Big Sky, MT, 04 March 2023.
2022
  1. Giulia Ciabatti, Dario Spiller, Shreyansh Daftry, Roberto Capobianco, Fabio Curti, "Deep Reinforcement Learning for Pin-Point Autonomous Lunar Landing: Trajectory Recalculation for Obstacle Avoidance," International Conference on Applied Intelligence and Informatics, 01 September 2022.
  2. Shreyansh Daftry, Neil Abcouwer, Tyler Del Sesto, Siddarth Venkatraman, Jialin Song, Lucas Igel, Amos Byon, Ugo Rosolia, Yisong Yue, Masahiro Ono, "MLNav: Learning to Safely Navigate on Martian Terrains," IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L), 07 March 2022.
2021
  1. 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.
  2. Shreyansh Daftry, Barry Ridge, William Seto, Tu-Hoa Pham, Peter Ilhardt, Gerard Maggiolino, Mark Van der Merwe, Alex Brinkman, John Mayo, Eric Kulczyski, Renaud Detry, "Machine Vision based Sample-tube Localization for Mars Sample Return," IEEE Aerospace Conference, 06 March 2021.
2020
  1. L. Matthies, S. Daftry, B. Rothrock, A. Davis, R. Hewitt, E. Sklyanskiy, J. Delaune, A. Schutte, M. Quadrelli, M. Malaska, "Terrain Relative Navigation for Guided Descent on Titan," IEEE Aerospace Conference, Big Sky, MT, USA, 05 February 2020.
  2. A. Schutte, J. Delaune, E. Sklyanskiy, R. Hewitt, S. Daftry, M. Quadrelli, L. Matthies, "Integrated Simulation and State Estimation for Precision Landing on Titan," IEEE Aerospace Conference, Big Sky, MT, USA, 05 February 2020.
  3. M. Ono, B. Rothrock, K. Otsu, Y. Iwashita, A. Didier, T. Islam, V. Sun, C. Laporte, K. Stack, S. Higa, J. Sawoniewicz, S. Daftry, C. Mattmann, V. Timmaraju, S. Sahnoune, O. Lamarre, D. Qiu, S. Ghosh, S. Nomura, H. Sarabu, S. Suehr, L. Folsom, G. Hedrick, H. Park, H. Roy, "MAARS: Machine Learning-Based Analytics for Rover Systems," IEEE Aerospace Conference, Big Sky, MT, USA, 05 February 2020.
  4. T. Pham, W. Seto, S. Daftry, A. Brinkman, J. Mayo, C. Padgett, E. Kulczycki, R. Detry, "Rover Localization for Tube Pickup: Dataset, Methods and Validation for Mars Sample Return Planning," IEEE Aerospace Conference, Big Sky, MT, USA, 05 February 2020.
  5. 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.
2019
  1. L. H. Matthies, B. Rothrock, S. Daftry, A. B. Davis and M. Malaska, "Map Matching During Descent for Terrain Relative Navigation on Titan," International Planetary Probe Workshop (IPPW), Oxford, United Kingdom, 06 August 2019.
  2. S. Daftry, M. Das, J. Delaune, C. Sorice, R. Hewitt, S. Reddy, D. Lytle, E. Gu and L. Matthies, "Robust Vision-based Autonomous Navigation, Mapping and Landing for MAVs at Night," International Symposium on Experimental Robotics (ISER), Buenos Aires, Argentina, 06 August 2019.
2018
  1. S. Daftry, J. Delaune, R. Bhuta, L. Matthies, "Towards Vision-based Safe Autonomous Landing of MAVs at Night," IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) Workshop, Brisbane, Australia, 03 October 2018.
  2. S. Daftry, Y. Agrawal, L. Matthies, "Online Self-supervised Long-range Scene Segmentation for MAVs," IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Madrid, Spain, 03 October 2018.
  3. S. Daftry, Y. Agrawal, L. Matthies, "Online Self-supervised Scene Segmentation for Micro Aerial Vehicles," IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) Workshop, Brisbane, Australia, 03 October 2018.
  4. S. Daftry, S. Zeng, A. Khan, N. Melik-Barkhudarov, J. A. Bagnell, M. Hebert, "Robust Monocular Flight in Cluttered Outdoor Environments," IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) Workshop, Daejeon, South Korea, 03 October 2018.
  5. S. Daftry, D. Dey, H. Sandhawalia, S. Zeng, J. A. Bagnell, M. Hebert, "Semi-Dense Visual Odometry for Monocular Navigation in Cluttered Environment," IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) Workshop, Seattle, USA, 03 October 2018.
  6. S. Daftry, J. A. Bagnell, M. Hebert, "Learning Transferable Policies for Monocular Reactive MAV Control," International Symposium on Experimental Robotics (ISER), Tokyo, Japan, 15 May 2018.
  7. S. Daftry, S. Zeng, J. A. Bagnell, M. Hebert, "Introspective Perception: Learning to Predict Failures in Vision Systems," IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Daejeon, South Korea, 15 May 2018.
2017
  1. S. Daftry, "Towards Scalable Visual Navigation of Micro Aerial Vehicles," Master Thesis, Carnegie Mellon, University, USA, 07 October 2017.
  2. S. Daftry, W. L. Whittaker, "Multi Robot Sensor Fusion and 3D Modelling for Subsurface Lunar Exploration," Robotics Institute Summer Scholar, Pittsburgh, USA, 02 October 2017.
  3. M. Rumpler, A. Tscharf, C. Mostegel, S. Daftry, C. Hoppe, R. Prettenthaler, F. Fraundorfer, G. Mayer, H. Bischof, "Evaluations on multi-scale camera networks for precise and geo-accurate reconstructions from aerial and terrestrial images with user guidance," Computer Vision and Image Understanding (CVIU), 02 October 2017.
  4. M. Rumpler, S. Daftry, A. Tscharf, R. Prettenthaler, C. Hoppe, G. Mayer, H. Bischof, "Automated End-to-End Workflow for Precise and Geo-accurate Reconstructions using Fiducial Markers," ISPRS Annals of Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, 02 October 2017.
  5. S. Daftry, "Artificial Neural Networks based Classification Technique for Iris Recognition," International Journal of Computer Applications, 57(4), 22-25, 02 October 2017.
  6. D. Dey, K. S. Shankar, S. Zeng, R. Mehta, M. T. Agcayazi, C. Eriksen, S. Daftry, J. A. Bagnell, M. Hebert, "Vision and Learning for Deliberative Monocular Cluttered Flight," International Conference on Field and Service Robotics (FSR), Toronto, Canada, 02 October 2017.
  7. S. Daftry, C. Hoppe, H. Bischof, "Building with Drones: Accurate 3D Facade Reconstruction using MAVs," IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Seattle, USA, 02 October 2017.
  8. S. Daftry, A. Wendel, H. Bischof, "Flexible and User-Centric Camera Calibration using Planar Fiducial Markers," British Machine Vision Conference (BMVC), Bristol, UK, 02 October 2017.
  9. A. Hussain, H. Jones, B. Kannan, U. Wong, T. Pimentel, S. Tang, S. Daftry, S. Huber, W. L. Whittaker, "Mapping Planetary Caves with an Autonomous, Heterogeneous Robot Team," IEEE Aerospace Conference (Aero), Big Sky, USA, 02 October 2017.
  10. S. Daftry, S. Dawar, "Performance Evaluation of Transform based Feature Extraction Methods for Identity Authentication System using Fingerprint Matching," International Conference on Signal Processing, Pattern Recognition and Applications, Crete, Greece, 02 October 2017.
  11. V. Agarwal, S. Daftry, B. Bhattacharya, "An Innovative Approach to Pipeline Health Monitoring using Crawler Robot with PVDF based Probe," International Conference on Robotics, Pittsburgh, USA, 02 October 2017.
  12. S. Daftry, C. Hoppe, H. Bischof, "Multi Scale Camera Network For Accurate Structure from Motion," International Computer Vision Summer School, Sicily, Italy, 02 October 2017.