Pranav Kedia

Pranav Kedia

FOSS and Open Hardware Creator and Enthusiast

About me

Pranav Kedia

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.

Latest

More on Google Scholar, LinkedIn and X.

News

2026

  1. Hosted Oren Gal (Swarms and AI Lab, University of Haifa) in Konstanz.

    Oren Gal in the lab next to a SailSwarm boat with its sail raised.

  2. Presented our paper "Speed-Weighted Adaptive Flocking for Sailing Swarms under Dynamic Environmental Forcing" at SAB 2026 in Berlin.

  3. Co-organised the Collective Motion and Energy Harvesting Workshop at the University of Konstanz with Hannah Williams and Heiko Hamann, hosting Martin Saska (CTU Prague) and Hector Garcia de Marina (University of Granada).

    Discussing a SailSwarm boat in the lab with Martin Saska and Hector Garcia de Marina.

  4. Three robots, three domains: our autonomous sailboat, a robotic fish and a quadrotor in one demonstration on Lake Constance, spanning the water's surface, underwater and the air (with Hun Jang and Liang Li).

  5. The first robot group is out: two SailSwarm boats navigated Lake Constance together for the first time. Next step: autonomous sailing as a group.

  6. Helped organise the Sino-German Workshop on Swarm Intelligence in Biology and Robotics at the University of Konstanz.

  7. Presented our paper "COMB: Common Open Modular robotic platform for Bees", an open-source robot that lives inside an observation-hive frame, at ICARM 2026 in Paris-Saclay.

  8. Attended SeaBASS, the marine bioacoustics summer school at Syracuse University, New York, with a Travel Grant ($500).

  9. Presented our paper "BIND-USBL: Bounding IMU Navigation Drift using USBL in Heterogeneous ASV–AUV Teams" at IEEE OCEANS 2026 in Sanya, China, with a Travel Grant ($1,500) from the Student Poster Competition. It is the first paper from our collaboration with the Indian Institute of Science.

2025

  1. Our autonomous sailboat and a robotic fish finally met on Lake Constance (with Heiko Hamann, Hun Jang and Liang Li).

Earlier updates (29)

2025

  1. Finalist at the Falling Walls Lab Baden-Württemberg 2025 in Konstanz, pitching "SailSwarm: Breaking the Wall of Autonomous Ocean Discovery".

  2. Hosted Michael Benjamin (MIT Marine Autonomy Lab) in Konstanz for discussions on swarms of autonomous sailboats.

  3. Attended IEEE OCEANS 2025 in Brest, France.

  4. Received the PANDOTA Fund for Doctoral Research (€5,000) from the University of Konstanz.

2024

  1. Presented "Developing SailSwarm" at the Maritime Heterogeneous Unmanned Robotic Systems (MHURS) workshop at IROS 2024 in Abu Dhabi.

  2. My poster "Building SailSwarm: A Swarm of Autonomous Sailing Vessels" won the Best Poster Award (by public vote) at ANTS 2024 in Konstanz.

  3. Invited to the Fulbright-Cottrell Workshop "Teaching Science Communication" (25–27 September 2024), with a Travel Grant.

  4. First autonomous sailing on Lake Constance: our augmented RC sailboat luffing, bearing off, tacking and gybing on its own (with intern Charlie Apolinsky).

  5. Attended the RoOT Ocean Technology Summer School at the Ocean Technology Campus Rostock, with a Travel Grant (€1,000).

  6. Awarded a travel grant for the 'Maritime Informatics & Robotics' summer school.

  7. Won our first small grant from a DFG-funded excellence cluster, for a project titled Swarming sailboats: Collective of energy-aware wind-powered vessels.

2023

  1. Started writing a book on PCB design with the publisher Packt.

  2. Joined the Cyber Physical Systems group at the University of Konstanz, Germany, as a PhD student.

  3. My bee robot was featured in the Emmy-nominated documentary "In Real Life: Voices of Nature" on Scripps News, about using AI and robots to decipher animal communication.

2022

  1. My Bee Robot, developed under 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".

  2. Experiment highlights for the 2022 season with the new Bee Robot and the flexible PCB-based dummy bee.

  3. Travelled to the University of Graz for my first in-person meeting and workshop for the EU H2020 project 'Hiveopolis'.

  4. Prototypes of the Dancing Honey Bee Robot and robot dummy wings developed for the 2022 season at the Biorobotics Lab, FU Berlin, for the EU H2020 project 'Hiveopolis'.

2021

  1. Prototypes of the Dancing Honey Bee Robot developed this year at the Biorobotics Lab, FU Berlin, for the EU H2020 project 'Hiveopolis'.

  2. Our paper "GenGrid: A Generalised Distributed Experimental Environmental Grid for Swarm Robotics" was accepted at ICRA 2021. It is based on my master's thesis, co-authored with my supervisor Prof. Madhav Rao.

  3. Joined the Biorobotics Lab at FU Berlin as a research assistant for the EU H2020 project 'Hiveopolis'.

2020

  1. Successfully defended my master's thesis.

  2. Submitted my thesis, "GENGRID: A Generalised Reconfigurable Distributed Experimental Environmental Grid For Swarm Robotics".

  3. Our paper "Design of a real-time autonomous in-cabin sensory system to detect passenger anomaly" was accepted at IV 2020 Workshops, on intelligent transportation systems and low-cost in-cabin sensors for passenger state identification.

  4. Temporarily postponing my thesis work due to the nationwide lockdown caused by the COVID-19 outbreak.

  5. Started my thesis work, with the goal of developing a scalable distributed agent environment for swarm robotics experiments.

2019

  1. Presented our paper at the 2019 IEEE International Conference on Vehicular Electronics and Safety (ICVES 2019) in Cairo, Egypt, at the German University in Cairo.

  2. Our paper "Design and development of an autonomous in-seat passenger state identification in a modern vigilance enabled public transportation system" was accepted at ICVES 2019.

  3. Worked at the ARMS Lab, led by Dr. Arpita Sinha at IIT Bombay, India, on additive and subtractive self-assembly algorithms for a swarm of Kilobots (May–July 2019).