2020
Khush Agrawal @R-PAD LAB, Carnegie Mellon University
Duration: 5 months Description: For the summer of 2020, I worked in Dr. David Held's Robots Perceiving and Doing (R-PAD) Lab at the Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University. I completed this internship as a part of the Robotics Institute of Summer Scholar (RISS) Program. The RISS Program is an intensive research program that supports a cohort of around 40 participants from around the world to plunge into cutting-edge robotics research. Originally, all of the participants were expected to conduct their research while staying on-campus but in the wake of the pandemic, the program was moved to a remotely operated medium. Now that I look back, all of the fast and unprecedented changes feel surreal. |
During my internship, I worked on two research directions both focusing on deformable objects. The former involved estimating the state of a deformable object while the latter involved developing algorithms for learning deformable object manipulation policies observing these representations. Deformable objects are difficult to deal with owing to the infinite configuration space they can attain compared to their rigid body counterparts. I was able to develop state estimation techniques that could be trained in simulation and transferred to the real-world to a fairly high degree of accuracy.
The internship was not a foray into lined up research projects but something beyond that, more intriguing and compelling. I was fortunate to hear from some leading robotics researchers like Dr. Henny Admoni (a leading Human Robot Interaction Researcher), Dr. Christopher Atkeson (inspiration of Baymax from Big Hero 6 was drawn from his lab). I was also able to tune into talks covering a broad spectrum of topics in robotics spanning from Space Robotics to Bio-inspired Robotics. The internship deepened my interest in robotics research and helped me in getting hands-on experience in conducting state-of-the-art research. I would like to thank Thomas Weng for actively supervising me throughout the summer and helping me with the RISS WPJ Paper. Special thanks to all of the seniors for constantly pushing me to attempt for the best and helping me make the cut!
Message: I'll pass on the same message that worked best for me, "Keep trying and you'll eventually land at the best place."
Contact
The internship was not a foray into lined up research projects but something beyond that, more intriguing and compelling. I was fortunate to hear from some leading robotics researchers like Dr. Henny Admoni (a leading Human Robot Interaction Researcher), Dr. Christopher Atkeson (inspiration of Baymax from Big Hero 6 was drawn from his lab). I was also able to tune into talks covering a broad spectrum of topics in robotics spanning from Space Robotics to Bio-inspired Robotics. The internship deepened my interest in robotics research and helped me in getting hands-on experience in conducting state-of-the-art research. I would like to thank Thomas Weng for actively supervising me throughout the summer and helping me with the RISS WPJ Paper. Special thanks to all of the seniors for constantly pushing me to attempt for the best and helping me make the cut!
Message: I'll pass on the same message that worked best for me, "Keep trying and you'll eventually land at the best place."
Contact
Rohit Lal @National University of Singapore
Duration: 6 months Description: My project was based on Deep Learning and Computer Vision algorithm. My major work was involved with the detection, tracking and pose estimation of origami robots. Though a lot of work has been done to track rigid body, but pose estimation of the non-rigid body like origami still remains a challenging task. The work done showed some really promising results and was submitted to ICRA 2021 conference. |
Work Experience: This research internship was really a great learning experience despite of being completely remote. I worked with a lot of PhD and international students who helped me in framing the problem statement and work with paper writing to make it up to the standards of ICRA. There was a fixed weekly meeting date and time to discuss the project update. I learned a lot about DL, CV, python specifically self-supervised learning and multi-view geometry during this period which might not have been possible on my own. At the end of the intern, I was supposed to submit all my work done as a form of the thesis which can be added as a book chapter.
Message: The Batch of ‘21 might have been unlucky in terms of having full internship experience. But we came to know that even a remote internship can be really useful if done with dedication (specifically valid for juniors pursing CV, DL and similar fields). In case you want to pursue research, try to grab an internship in your 3rd year under some prof/university/company which is working close to your field. This will keep you motivated to work and you will really contribute to the community as well!
Contact
Message: The Batch of ‘21 might have been unlucky in terms of having full internship experience. But we came to know that even a remote internship can be really useful if done with dedication (specifically valid for juniors pursing CV, DL and similar fields). In case you want to pursue research, try to grab an internship in your 3rd year under some prof/university/company which is working close to your field. This will keep you motivated to work and you will really contribute to the community as well!
Contact
Mohammad Saad @ University of Pavia, Italy
Duration: 3 months Description: I worked in Identification and Controls of Dynamic System Lab at University of Pavia, Italy, Under the guidance of Prof. Antonella Ferrara and Bianca Sangiovanni (PhD). My project was aimed at "Dynamic Obstacle avoidance of Robotic manipulator using Artificial potential field". In this project, I developed decentralized PD controller for 2 arm manipulator and applied artificial potential field concept to avoid the obstacles. |
Work Experience: It was a great experience for me working with Prof. Antonella and Bianca (PhD). They were very supportive during the whole intern period. Bianca cleared my doubts by doing one to one discussion whenever I stuck at some point during the course of intern. I got good exposure and got to learn new simulation techniques.
Message: Never lose hope, keep doing what interests you and keep improving yourself day by day. All these delta changes make a big change in your life and you will end up where you have never imagined.
One quote which I follow " Persistence is key to success".
Acknowledgment: I would like to thank all my seniors who guided me and all my batchmates who supported and motivated me during the application of these research internships: It was a great experience for me working with Prof. Antonella and Bianca (PhD). They were very supportive during the whole intern period. Bianca cleared my doubts by doing one to one discussion whenever I stuck at some point during the course of intern. I got good exposure and got to learn new simulation techniques.
Contact
Message: Never lose hope, keep doing what interests you and keep improving yourself day by day. All these delta changes make a big change in your life and you will end up where you have never imagined.
One quote which I follow " Persistence is key to success".
Acknowledgment: I would like to thank all my seniors who guided me and all my batchmates who supported and motivated me during the application of these research internships: It was a great experience for me working with Prof. Antonella and Bianca (PhD). They were very supportive during the whole intern period. Bianca cleared my doubts by doing one to one discussion whenever I stuck at some point during the course of intern. I got good exposure and got to learn new simulation techniques.
Contact
Mayuresh Sarode @ iCapotech Pvt Ltd, Mumbai
Duration: 3 months Description: We developed “NEEL KAVACH KIOSK”, a self check-in system for COVID health monitoring and preventing the spread of infection. It is fully automated and is capable of face, mask, and temperature detection. It has an UV sanitization chamber for user articles, and can send SMS notifications when the sanitizer needs a refill or even when the temperature exceeds the warning limit. The product also comes with an autonomic hand sanitizer dispenser which prevents the contact between user and the system. It has a user friendly GUI along with voice instructions. This product can be deployed at the entrance of bank offices, hospitals, medical stores, malls, shops, as well as government and corporate offices for guests and employees. |
Work Experience: It was an amazing experience to go through the overall development of product from scratch to market level product. I have worked on purely embedded systems and electronics part of machine along with overall integration of modules. As it was a instant project (there is need to deliver the product), we had to meet the deadlines as soon as possible to have some time for aesthetics at the end. I also had great worth discussions as a guidance from Dr. Nandkumar Pai, CEO of RenewSys India Pvt. ltd. for the product to be successful. I am thankful to my mentor (Sam Wesley) who guided me worked with me tirelessly throughout the project.
Message: Its always advisable to read and go through research and examine already existing similar products if you are aiming to develop one. Always think of how it can serve to customers better, rather than just adding features for sake of coolness because at end these are customers who are going to use it not you. During Course of project its must to maintain proper documentation to keep track records and seek guidance whenever needed.
Contact
Message: Its always advisable to read and go through research and examine already existing similar products if you are aiming to develop one. Always think of how it can serve to customers better, rather than just adding features for sake of coolness because at end these are customers who are going to use it not you. During Course of project its must to maintain proper documentation to keep track records and seek guidance whenever needed.
Contact
Neha Marne @MRS Lab, Prague
Duration: 3 months Description: "I worked on two projects 1st was a swarm of drone movement with minimum computation requirement. In this project, an algorithm was implemented which uses minimum computation power. The coherence of swarm was establishment. Real-time obstacle avoidance as well as collision avoidance was achieved using range sensors and lidar. A simulation was performed in gazebo using drones integrated with PX4. 2nd project was the localisation of swarm of a drone with a minimum sensors requirement. I implemented this using sonar sensor, imu sensors and UWB sensors. UWB sensors work on giving distance on basis of signal strength. This can also be used for communication, thus special sensors were imu and sonar sensors only. Onboard decentralised localisation of swarm of the drone was achieved. This was also implemented using PX4 in GAZEBO. " |
Work Experience: I got an opportunity to do a project under Dr Martin Saska at MRS Lab, Prague. In the start, it was on-campus paid intern. But later due to covid pandemic it turned out to be a remote intern. My working problems were a good research problem. Also, PhD and masters students were helpful. Working in the lab gave me more exposure, and widen my view about robotics research. Going through previous work by lab members, was suggestive for "art of writing code". Also taught some of the tools on how to approach the problem.
Message: "Be consistent. Whatever we are doing in the lab is good, enjoy a journey than the goal rest will be followed."
Contact
Message: "Be consistent. Whatever we are doing in the lab is good, enjoy a journey than the goal rest will be followed."
Contact
Himanshu Patil @National University of Singapore
Duration: 4 months Description: For Summer 2020, I worked with Dr. Guillaume Sartoretti at his Multi-Agent Robotics Motion (MARMoT) Lab in National University of Singapore. We, a team of 5 including Guillaume, are working on Domain Decomposition using RL. A brief idea about this project is to divide workload into multiple agents uniformly. Due to pandemic, this internship was completed remotely. |
Work Experience: The main important thing that I learned from this internship is that, no idea is a bad idea. We tried various approach to reach our goal and every idea mattered. Also I got to know much more about work culture all over the world. This internship changed the way I looked towards Artificial intelligence, which intrigued me to study it more deeply.
Message: Hard-work is a key to success.
Contact
Message: Hard-work is a key to success.
Contact
Mayuresh Bhoyar @ iCapotech Pvt Ltd,, Mumbai
Duration: 3 months Description: We developed a “NEEL KAVACH KIOSK”, a self check-in system for COVID health monitoring and preventing the spread of infection. It is fully automated and is capable of face, mask, and temperature detection. It has an UV sanitization chamber for user articles, and can send SMS notifications when the sanitizer needs a refill or even when the temperature exceeds the warning limit. The product also comes with an autonomic hand sanitizer dispenser which prevents the contact between user and the system. It has a user friendly GUI along with voice instructions. This product can be deployed at the entrance of bank offices, hospitals, medical stores, malls, shops, as well as government and corporate offices for guests and employees. |
Work Experience: It was a great journey of creating a product from scratch to its finished product form. I had the opportunities to work with new technologies, use new tools and work with people of different domains. I got the opportunity to explore various other domains outside my field of interest. I have gained professional working experience while working on this project. I am thankful to my mentor Shivani Umredkar, who guided and helped me to work with both hardware and software, in this difficult situation of COVID-19.
Message: I would like to suggest to my juniors to work on both hardware and software, as practical implementation helps a lot in understanding the crux of any concept. I would also suggest to explore various fields and try to think of how can you combine it with your field and develop something new and innovative.
Contact
Message: I would like to suggest to my juniors to work on both hardware and software, as practical implementation helps a lot in understanding the crux of any concept. I would also suggest to explore various fields and try to think of how can you combine it with your field and develop something new and innovative.
Contact
Satyam Gupta @Robotics Research Center, IIIT Hyderabad
Duration: 6 months Description:I worked on implementing Non Linear controls algorithms on a Steer-By-Wire system which is a very essential part of autonomous driving. I implemented Sliding Mode control, Adaptive Sliding mode control and many other such algorithms for the second order SBW system under parametric uncertainties and compared the results. |
Work Experience: It was a very nice experience working with Prof Spandan Roy and Harsh Shukla. I got to learn how to analyze various non linear systems and how to develop and implement different controllers on them. Discussions with the prof and mentor were useful and very insightful which helped me in understanding the depth of the problem.
Message: "Always stick to your basics" and "focus more on fundamentals"
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Message: "Always stick to your basics" and "focus more on fundamentals"
Contact
Aakarsh Goel @Swayyatt Robots, Bhopal
Duration: 4 months Description: Worked on Controls and Motion Planning of Autonomous Vehicle. Applied Reinforcement learning algorithms to tune the look ahead distance for Pure pursuit controller and used Carla-Ros bridge for the complete Motion Planning and Controls Stack. |
Work Experience: I got to learn lot about Autonomous vehicles and RL methods during my internship. The mentors supported a lot and there were lot of sessions held on RL and autonomous vehicles that widened my understanding on various aspects of Autonomous vehicles
Message: Just start one thing and focus only on that, If you are struck with any problem don't leave that right away, it will take time and you will get more confidence in the field as the time progresses
Contact
Message: Just start one thing and focus only on that, If you are struck with any problem don't leave that right away, it will take time and you will get more confidence in the field as the time progresses
Contact
Uddesh Tople @National University of Singapore
Duration: 3 months Description: I worked on the designing, modelling and control of Origami Structure under Dr. Hongliang Ren of NUS. The Origami pattern chosen for this project was the Yoshimura Origami pattern. The Origami structure, designed in Solidworks, was imported in a Vrep Environment and then controlled through the Lua Script. |
Work experience: It was a great experience working on this project. Special thanks to Huxin, Phd at NUS for discussing the problems going on in the project virtually. Through these discussions, I got to know about the other projects going on in the Lab.
Message: Whenever you are stuck in a problem (in life or in a project), don’t lose hope. There is always a ray of hope which will help you. You just have to find it.
Contact
Message: Whenever you are stuck in a problem (in life or in a project), don’t lose hope. There is always a ray of hope which will help you. You just have to find it.
Contact
Amrapali Kandhare@AirLab, Carnegie Mellon University, USA
Duration: 4 months (Ongoing) Description: I am working at AirLab, The Robotics Institute Carnegie Mellon University. I implemented different path planning algorithms: Dijkstra, A-Star, RRT, etc. learned Probabilistic Approaches to the path planning problem, constructed Artificial Potential Fields for path planning , and learned Gradient-Based Control strategies. After implementing these algorithms, I took different test cases and compared their performances in complex environments. I controlled the Turtlebot in the Physical VRep environment using the PyRep Repository: obtaining occupancy maps and implementing path planning algorithms. |
Work experience: It was a great experience working under the guidance of Peng Yin (PostDoc) and I would like to thank him for this opportunity. Weekly meetings were conducted for project updates. People in the lab are very supportive, friendly and doubts are resolved on the slack channel quickly
Message: Keep pushing yourself for stretching the boundaries to increase your capacities. Be consistent and never give up!
I would like to thank the IvLabs Community, which supports and motivates me."
Contact
Message: Keep pushing yourself for stretching the boundaries to increase your capacities. Be consistent and never give up!
I would like to thank the IvLabs Community, which supports and motivates me."
Contact
2019
Akshay Kulkarni @ AIRLab, Politecnico di Milano
Duration: 5 week Description: "I worked in the AI and Robotics Laboratory (AIRLab) of Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy under the supervision of Prof. Andrea Bonarini. My work involved the analysis of signals from an accelerometer worn by a person to classify the person's activity. It also involved implementation of the sensor system able to send the data to a remote computer." Message: "I would like to thank all my seniors and batchmates who guided and encouraged me while applying for this research internship." Contact |
Aman Jain @ Ecole Polytechnique De Montreal, Canada
Duration: 3 Months Description: " I worked on camera calibration from the traffic scene. It is a part of an open-source project named traffic intelligence from Prof. Nicolas Saunier. The developed algorithm works for visible as well as thermal cameras. For more details, you may visit here " Contact |
Aniket Gujarathi @ Istituto Italiano di Technologia(IIT), Genoa
Duration: 3 months Description: "I completed his internship at Istituto Italiano di Technologia(IIT), Genoa, Italy. I worked under Dr. Chiara Bartolozzi and Dr. Arren Glover in Event Driven Perception for Robotics Lab. The research was based on face tracking on event driven cameras (ATIS) using particle filter based approach. Event based perception is a highly dynamic and upcoming field in the domain of computer vision applications. Due to the various benefits of the biologically inspired event cameras like high dynamic range, low latency, high temporal resolution, low power consumption etc., the lab aims to induce a paradigm shift in robotics." Contact |
Navid Panchi @ L&T Technology Services
Duration: Two months Description: "I completed my summer internship at L&T Technology Services Limited, Mumbai. I was a part of the Data Science team where I worked on Audio Analysis for Machine Fault Detection. The aim of my work was to extract robust signatures for monitoring the changes in the state of the machines. I implemented a Dynamically defined Inverse Fourier Model using CNN with special kernels to extract signatures. The company is working on acquiring a patent on the work done by me during my internship." Contact |
Rajeshree Deotalu @ Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Massachusetts, USA
Duration: 2 Months Description: "I completed my internship at WPI, Massachusetts, USA in WPI Humanoid Robotics Lab. My project was focused on Dual Arm Manipulation for Atlas robot. The aim was to apply hybrid motion/force control on arms using Matlab/Simulink and creating Atlas as a rigid body tree to accomplish dynamic simulation and analyzing the runtime difference between C++ API(TOUGH) on simulation or on hardware." Contact |
Unmesh Patil @ Hitech robotics systems limited, Gurgaon
Duration: 2.5 months Description: "I Worked on developing motion planning stack for a self-driving car. Also developed a pipeline to autonomously generate required map format from open-source map data." Message: "The Work environment is great. Cooperative and research favouring staff. One can expect a great learning experience" Contact |
Yogesh Phalak @ Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg VA USA.
Duration: 2 months Description: "I have done the work on the project 'Study & Kinematical Optimization of Snake Movements Using Snake Robot' as a short term summer research internship at the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Mechanics (BEAM) of Virginia Tech Polytechnic and State University, Blacksburg VA, USA. The project was daily supervised by Dr. Hodjat Pendar, Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Mechanics and also supported by Dr. Shane D. Ross and Dr. Jake Socha. My work included the following tasks: 1) To set the smooth motion and remove the unwanted vibrations from the robot actuators than there were in previous control methods, to make the robot suitable for performing real-time experiments. 2) To develop the user semi-supervised experimental setup for performing the iterative experiments required for the optimization. 3) To implement the different optimization algorithms on the snake robot to find the optimized kinematics for the maximum displacement." Contact |
PAST Interns
Note : The list will be updated soon
Manish Saroya @ Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh
contact : manishsaroya@gmail.com
" I did my summer research internship at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh and I’d like to give you some helpful tips based on my experience. "
Preparation before getting an internship:
First of all, start applying for your dream universities as early as possible. Starting early is the key to a successful internship. You can do more detailed research on the opportunities available in universities if you start early. Getting a visa might also consume your time, hence if you are aiming for the month of May, start applying from December itself.
Precautions you should take while writing cover letter:
Prepare your cover letter in an emphatic and compact manner, even better than your resume. Professors do not have time to read your whole resume, so your cover letter should contain primarily your interests and a summary of your projects along with photos if possible.
How to choose your professor?
Choose a professor whose research field matches with your prior projects or interests. If you are brilliant in your field but the professor is looking for some skill that you don’t possess, then there can be chances of being rejected for an intern. So deeply study the research areas of the professor to see whether you are suitable for the lab at all.
Experience at Robotics Institute (CMU)
I had a great experience working under Prof. Howie Choset, the director of bio-robotics lab, an awesome and well-organized lab. We had weekly meetings where we used to present our weekly progress report/demos on the project selected. My project was to design a “Controller for Multi Agent path planner”.
My batch mate Akash Singh who was also with me at CMU worked on “Modelling and Path Planning of Snake Robots in a Cluttered environment” (WTF!). Yeah, I know the name sounds cool.
I would highly recommend you to do a foreign intern after your third year. There are various advantages of an internship at a research lab:
“The difference between try and triumph is a little umph.”
Special thanks to Rohan Thakker (Graduate, Batch of 2014) who helped me immensely to earn this research internship.
contact : manishsaroya@gmail.com
" I did my summer research internship at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh and I’d like to give you some helpful tips based on my experience. "
Preparation before getting an internship:
First of all, start applying for your dream universities as early as possible. Starting early is the key to a successful internship. You can do more detailed research on the opportunities available in universities if you start early. Getting a visa might also consume your time, hence if you are aiming for the month of May, start applying from December itself.
Precautions you should take while writing cover letter:
Prepare your cover letter in an emphatic and compact manner, even better than your resume. Professors do not have time to read your whole resume, so your cover letter should contain primarily your interests and a summary of your projects along with photos if possible.
How to choose your professor?
Choose a professor whose research field matches with your prior projects or interests. If you are brilliant in your field but the professor is looking for some skill that you don’t possess, then there can be chances of being rejected for an intern. So deeply study the research areas of the professor to see whether you are suitable for the lab at all.
Experience at Robotics Institute (CMU)
I had a great experience working under Prof. Howie Choset, the director of bio-robotics lab, an awesome and well-organized lab. We had weekly meetings where we used to present our weekly progress report/demos on the project selected. My project was to design a “Controller for Multi Agent path planner”.
My batch mate Akash Singh who was also with me at CMU worked on “Modelling and Path Planning of Snake Robots in a Cluttered environment” (WTF!). Yeah, I know the name sounds cool.
I would highly recommend you to do a foreign intern after your third year. There are various advantages of an internship at a research lab:
- Exposure to the leading-edge technology: You will be working in an environment where the state of the art innovations are being developed.
- You will receive a direct guidance from the researcher/professor who excels in that field.
- Will add value to your profile while applying for higher education.
- Apart from technical experience, the best thing about doing an intern abroad is that you become independent in its true sense. Leasing an apartment and living in a completely different country with a new culture will provide a sense of what it is to be independent.
“The difference between try and triumph is a little umph.”
Special thanks to Rohan Thakker (Graduate, Batch of 2014) who helped me immensely to earn this research internship.
Gaurav Charpe @ Advanced Research Centre, National University of Singapore, Summer 2018
Description : To complete the gazebo model of bus by adding pid controller for steering wheel & throttle and tuning it dynamically using dynamic reconfigure. To integrate sensors such as radar, lidar, camera on bus model and ensure its smooth working. To perform transfer learning using ssd_mobilenetv1 model on custom dataset.
Description : To complete the gazebo model of bus by adding pid controller for steering wheel & throttle and tuning it dynamically using dynamic reconfigure. To integrate sensors such as radar, lidar, camera on bus model and ensure its smooth working. To perform transfer learning using ssd_mobilenetv1 model on custom dataset.
Disha Kamale @ San'tAnna Biorobotics Institute, Pisa, Italy , in Summer 2018
Description : Building Telecommunication framework for deaf-blind people using Tactile Sign Language under Dr. Calogero Oddo.
Description : Building Telecommunication framework for deaf-blind people using Tactile Sign Language under Dr. Calogero Oddo.
Khushdeep Singh @ University of Plymouth, United Kingdom, in Summer 2016
Description : Design of low cost end-effector aimed to grab 2 kgs payload under Dr.Guido Bugmann
For More info : website
Description : Design of low cost end-effector aimed to grab 2 kgs payload under Dr.Guido Bugmann
For More info : website