Welcome!
Thanks for visiting my page!
I am Nagamanikandan Govindan, and I have recently joined the Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, IIITDM Kancheepuram, as an Assistant Professor. Prior to this, I worked as an Assistant Professor at the Robotics Research Center, IIIT Hyderabad, for four years. I completed my Ph.D. in Robotics from the Robotics Lab, Department of Engineering Design, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, under the guidance of Prof. Asokan Thondiyath.
My interest lies broadly in the area of robotics and control. More specifically, designing mechanisms for multimodal capabilities and the development of control strategies for various manipulation and locomotion modes. The central focus is on synergizing locomotion and manipulation at the design level and increasing the functional capabilities of mechanically less-complex robotic systems.
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Research interest: Robot design, Mobile manipulation, Hybrid robots, Grasper, Redundant and Underactuated robots, Optimal control, Mechatronic system design
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Vacancies: I am looking for long-term interns who are interested in mobile manipulation/robot design/control. If interested, contact me.
Nagamanikandan Govindan
Openings: Two Ph.D. positions are available, subject to the institute's Ph.D. admission process.
Recent News:
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Paper accepted - IEEE RAL Apr2025 (New)
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Paper accepted - Journal of Mechanisms and Robotics, Trans. of ASME Apr2025(New)
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Paper accepted - ICRA2025
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Dec 2024 - Joined IIITDM Kancheepuram as an Assistant Professor
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Paper accepted - IEEE RAL Aug 2024
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Congratulations to Haasith Pasala (MS student) for successfully defending his thesis!
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CASE2024 - Paper accepted
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Mar 2024: Patent Granted: GRIPPER DEVICE FOR GRASPING, PLACING AND THROWING OBJECTS OF DIFFERENT GEOMETRY AND WEIGHT. IN Patent No. 515276
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Jan 2024 - Patent Granted: DEVICE FOR ADJUSTING JOINT STIFFNESS. IN Patent No.: 494078
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25th May 2023 - Patent Granted: A VERSATILE HYBRID ROBOTIC SYSTEM FOR MULTIMODAL LOCOMOTION AND GRASPING. IN Patent No.: 432862
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28th Apr 2023 - Throwing gripper featured in IEEE spectrum Friday Videos
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Our manuscript has been accepted for publication in the IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics (TMECH) - Mar 2023. [Link]
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IROS 2022 (Presented Online) and OCEAN2022- Paper accepted.
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IROS 2021 and AIM2021 - Paper accepted.
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Feb 2021 - Joined as Assistant Professor at RRC, IIIT H
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Jan 2021 - Successfully defended my PhD thesis.
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May 2019 - GraspMan hand has featured in the timeline covering 106 years (1912–2018) of Research & Development of robotic hands - Annual Review of Control, Robotics, and Autonomous Systems - A Century of Robotic Hands.
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Aug 2019 - "A robot grasper that can climb pipes" - a research highlight appeared in https://www.nature.com/articles/nindia.2019.113 (doi:10.1038/nindia.2019.113)
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Our project "GraspMan" - A multimodal robotic platform for various industrial and service applications has appeared in various news portals: IndiaToday, Livemint, Techiexpert, and many more.
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Courses:
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Robotics: Dynamics and Control (Monsoon 2021 to 24)​
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Mechatronics System Design (Spring 2022 to 24)
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IoT Workshop (Monsoon 2022 to 24)
Professional Activities:
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Master workshop in the Robotics domain under the College Research Affiliate Program 2024, IIITH newletter
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Technical Programme Chair - Robotics and Cybernetics, INDICON23
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Reviewer for
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​Journals - IJRR, IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics, IEEE RA-Letters, ASME Journal of Mechanisms and Robotics, IEEE Access, Robotica, Mechanics Based Design of Structures and Machines, ASME Journal of Computing and Information Science in Engineering
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Conferences - IROS 2021 to 2024, ICRA-2021,2023, CASE 2024
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Member, IEEE Robotics and Automation society.
Invited Talks:
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An interesting session on "Introduction to Robotics and Challenges" as part of the Design Thinking program ‘LoDEStonE 2024’ for school kids (May 2024).
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A session on "Task-based controls for mobile manipulators" as a part of a workshop on "Planning and Control of Autonomous Systems" at IIITH (Sep 2023).
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A session on "Control of mobile manipulators' as a part of FDP on "Research trends and Control of Robotic Systems," at Govt. Engineering College, Palakkad (Nov 2022).
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A session on 'Mobile manipulators' as a part of FDP on "Mobile Robotics " at SRM University (June 2016).