About me
Hello! I'm Pranav Kedia, a Ph.D. researcher at the cyber physical group supervised by Prof. Dr. Heiko Hamann at the University of Konstanz, where I'm affiliated with the Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour. I am working on a swarm of autonomous sailboats optimized for long-duration endurance. This research has been a combination of learning about sailing and applying my skills and knowledge in Embedded systems and Robotics. Previously, I worked on Bee Waggle Robot in the EU H2020 project 'Hiveopolis' at the Biorobtics Lab led by Prof. Dr. Tim Landgraf at the Free University of Berlin. I completed my master's majoring in electronics and communication with a specialization in embedded systems at IIIT-B. Previously, I was fortunate to be part of the Surgical and Assistive Robotics Lab, led by Prof. Madhav Rao. I was also part of the ARMS lab, led by Dr. Arpita Sinha at IIT Bombay, India, in the summer of 2019. Prof. Sachit Rao had supervised me on guided coursework and non-course projects. I enjoy working on Bio-inspired Swarm Robotics and Swarm Intelligence methods. You can find details of my Publications and Projects here.
Research and other interests
I am interested in multi-agent and swarm robotics and its applications, human-robot interaction. Building novel robots has always excited me.
Apart from my work, I enjoy traveling and learning about new cultures and languages. I like to find interconnections and variations of languages in different places. I love to sketch and paint. I am also an avid reader of world politics and history.
News/Updates
May'24: Awarded a travel grant for the 'Maritime Informatics & Robotics' summer school.
Apr'24: Won our first small grant from a DFG-funded excellence cluster for a project titled Swarming sailboats: Collective of energy-aware wind-powered vessels
Sep'23: Joined the cyber-physical group at the University of Konstanz, Germany as a PhD student.
May'23: Documentary "In Real Life: Voices of Nature" on Scripps News about using AI and robots to decipher animal communication. The piece covers my bee robot with many other interesting works.
Oct'22: My Bee Robot, developed with the supervision of Prof. Dr. Tim Landgraf at Freie Universität Berlin, was featured in MIT Technology Review in an article titled "How robotic honeybees and hives could help the species fight back". Sep'22: Experiment highlights for season 2022 with the new Bee Robot and flexible PCB-based dummy bee. Jul'22: Traveled to University Graz for my first in-person meeting and workshop for the EU H2020 project 'Hiveopolis.' June'22: Prototypes of Dancing Honey Bee Robot and Robot Dummy wings developed for the 2022 season at the Biorobotics lab at FU Berlin for the EU H2020 project 'Hiveopolis.' Nov'21: Prototypes of Dancing Honey Bee Robot developed this year at the Biorobotics lab at FU Berlin for the EU H2020 project 'Hiveopolis.' Feb'21: Our paper titled "GenGrid: A Generalised Distributed Experimental Environmental Grid for Swarm Robotics" was accepted at ICRA 2021. This paper is based on my master's thesis and co-authored with my supervisor Prof. Madhav Rao. Jan'21: I joined the Biorobotics lab at FU Berlin as a research assistant for the EU H2020 project 'Hiveopolis.' Sep'20: Successfully defended my masters thesis. Sep'20: I submitted my thesis titled "GENGRID: A Generalised Reconfigurable Distributed Experimental Environmental Grid For Swarm Robotics." Apr'20: Our paper titled "Design of a real-time autonomous in-cabin sensory system to detect passenger anomaly" was accepted at IV 2020 Workshops. Here our focus is on building intelligent transportation systems and designing in-cabin low-cost sensors for passenger state identification. We used sensor fusion techniques and machine learning algorithms to test our prototype. Mar'20: Unfortunately, I am temporarily postponing my thesis work due to the nationwide lockdown caused by the COVID-19 outbreak. Stay safe, folks. Jan'20: Started working on my thesis work with the goal of developing a scalable distributed agent environment for swarm robotics experiments. Sep'19: I presented our paper and research work at the 2019 IEEE International Conference on Vehicular Electronics and Safety ICVES 2019 in Cairo, Egypt at the German University in Cairo. July'19: Our paper titled "Design and development of an autonomous in-seat passenger state identification in a modern vigilance enabled public transportation system" was accepted at ICVES 2019. My research focuses on building intelligent transportation systems and designing sensors for passenger state identification. May'19 - July'19: Worked at the ARMS lab, led by Dr. Arpita Sinha at IIT Bombay, India. I worked on additive and subtractive self-assembly algorithms for a swarm of Kilobots. Click here for older updates...
