---

I am a PhD Candidate and Marie Skłodowska-Curie Early Stage Researcher at Luleå University of Technology, Sweden. My research focuses on safe control for deliberate contact and multi-robot applications across dynamic platforms, including aerial, ground, and legged robots.

My vision is to enable multi-robot coordinated physical interactions through safe learning, unifying advanced control theory (CBFs, MPC) with high-performance deployment on cyber-physical systems. I have substantial experience translating robust control solutions from Gazebo simulations to extensive field evaluations in challenging operational settings using ROS/ROS2 and PX4 firmware.

My current research interests include: Formal Guarantees (CBF safety for RL policy deployment), Nonlinear and Constrained Control, Dynamic Coordination of mobile manipulators, and Hierarchical Shared Control for Teleoperation. CV (PDF)»

---

Work Experience

• Visiting Researcher at Ericsson Research (Oct - Nov 2024): Developed and validated a control solution ensuring the safety and stability of networked robotic systems in the presence of delays.
• Visiting Researcher at Technical University of Denmark (May - Jul 2023): Led system integration and control design for vision-based target identification, localization, and navigation for aerial robots for payload transportation in GNSS-denied environments.
• Research Assistant at IIIT Hyderabad (Jan 2019 - Jul 2021): Performed LIDAR-based SLAM and path planning for autonomous navigation. Formulated and validated adaptive robust controllers for aerial payload transportation.
• Software Engineer at KPIT Technologies (Nov 2015 - May 2018): Developed and integrated inter-ECU communication and diagnostic modules for automotive projects (ADAS) using AUTOSAR standards.

---

Research Publications

Journal Articles (Prioritized)

• CEP 2025 “Safe docking of a payload-carrying spacecraft using state constrained adaptive control.”, Sankaranarayanan, V. N., Banerjee, A., Satpute, S., & Nikolakopoulos, G. Control Engineering Practice, 162, 106363. DOI: 10.1016/j.conengprac.2025.106363
• CEP 2025 “Switched control barrier functions-based safe docking control strategy for a planar floating platform.”, Saradagi, A., Sankaranarayanan, V. N., Banerjee, A., Satpute, S., & Nikolakopoulos, G. Control Engineering Practice, 158, 106274. DOI: 10.1016/j.conengprac.2025.106274
• CEP 2023 “Adaptive control for a payload carrying spacecraft with state constraints.”, Sankaranarayanan, V. N., Banerjee, A., Satpute, S., Roy, S., & Nikolakopoulos, G. Control Engineering Practice, 135, 105515. DOI: 10.1016/j.conengprac.2023.105515
• TMECH 2020 “Artificial-delay adaptive control for under-actuated euler-lagrange robotics.”, Roy, S., Baldi, S., Li, P., & Sankaranarayanan, V. N. IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics. DOI: 10.1109/TMECH.2021.3052068
• RAL 2022 “Robustifying payload carrying operations for quadrotors under time-varying state constraints and uncertainty.”, Sankaranarayanan, V. N., Yadav, R. D., Swayampakula, R. K., Ganguly, S., & Roy, S. IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 7(2), 4885-4892. DOI: 10.1109/LRA.2022.3154051
• Drones 2022 “Adaptive robust control for quadrotors with unknown time-varying delays and uncertainties in dynamics.”, Sankaranarayanan, V. N., Satpute, S., & Nikolakopoulos, G. Drones, 6(9), 220. DOI: 10.3390/drones6090220
• OCAM 2020 “Introducing switched adaptive control for quadrotors for vertical operations.”, Sankaranarayanan, V. N., & Roy, S. Optimal Control Applications and Methods, 2020; 41: 1875– 1888. DOI: 10.1002/oca.2595

Conference Proceedings (Prioritized)

• ICRA 2024 “A CBF-adaptive control architecture for visual navigation for UAV in the presence of uncertainties.”, Sankaranarayanan, V. N., Saradagi, A., Satpute, S., & Nikolakopoulos, G. 2024 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation. DOI: 10.1109/ICRA57147.2024.10611530
• IROS 2024 “Time-varying control barrier function for safe and precise landing of a UAV on a moving target.”, Sankaranarayanan, V. N., Saradagi, A., Satpute, S., & Nikolakopoulos, G. 2024 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems. DOI: 10.1109/IROS58592.2024.10802827
• IROS 2021 “Efficient manoeuvring of quadrotor under constrained space and predefined accuracy.”, Ganguly, S., Sankaranarayanan, V. N., Suraj, B., Yadav, R. D., & Roy, S. 2021 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems. DOI: 10.1109/IROS51168.2021.9636323
• IROS 2020 “Aerial transportation of unknown payloads: Adaptive path tracking for quadrotors.”, Sankaranarayanan, V. N., Roy, S., & Baldi, S. 2020 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems. DOI: 10.1109/IROS45743.2020.9341402
• ACC 2024 “Collision-free landing of multiple UAVs on moving ground vehicles using time-varying control barrier functions.”, Sankaranarayanan, V. N., Saradagi, A., Satpute, S., & Nikolakopoulos, G. 2024 American Control Conference. DOI: 10.23919/ACC60939.2024.10644586
• ICUAS 2024 “Assisted physical interaction: Autonomous aerial robots with neural network detection, navigation, and safety layers.”, Berra, A., Sankaranarayanan, V. N., Seisa, A. S., et al. 2024 International Conference on Unmanned Aircraft Systems. DOI: 10.1109/ICUAS60882.2024.10557050
• ROBOSOFT 2024 “Design of a flexible robot arm for safe aerial physical interaction.”, Mellet, J., Berra, A., Seisa, A. S., Sankaranarayanan, V. N., et al. 2024 IEEE 7th International Conference on Soft Robotics. DOI: 10.1109/RoboSoft60065.2024.10522019
• CCGRIDW 2025 “Cloud-assisted remote control for aerial robots: From theory to proof-of-concept implementation.”, Seisa, A. S., Sankaranarayanan, V. N., Damigos, G., Satpute, S. G., & Nikolakopoulos, G. 2025 IEEE 25th International Symposium on Cluster, Cloud and Internet Computing Workshops. DOI: 10.1109/CCGridW65158.2025.00032
• IFAC 2023 “Adaptive control of euler-lagrange systems under time-varying state constraints without a priori bounded uncertainty.”, Sankaranarayanan, V. N., Satpute, S., Roy, S., & Nikolakopoulos, G. 22nd World Congress of the International Federation of Automatic Control. DOI: 10.1016/j.ifacol.2023.10.1482

---

Awards and Honors

• Marie Skłodowska-Curie Early Stage Research Fellowship (2021-2024): Awarded a prestigious EU Innovative Training Network (ITN) fellowship to support doctoral research.
• IIIT Hyderabad Research Fellowship (2019-2021): Awarded a competitive fellowship to cover tuition and living expenses during my Masters.
• MBZIRC Maritime Grand Challenge (2024): Finalist in the competition focused on complex aerial/surface robot coordination.
• ARTPARK Robotics Challenge (2022): Runners up in the challenge focused on autonomous robotic systems.
• RoboGames'15: Won Bronze Medal in FreeStyle for our humanoid.

---

Video Demo: Aerial Robotics & Safe Control

EU and Research Projects

• AERO-TRAIN (Marie Curie ITN): Designed and deployed safe, adaptive, and delay-tolerant controllers for aerial payload transportation, manipulation, and deliberate contact applications. Performed vision-based safe landing of UAV on moving targets.
• PERSEPHONE: Implemented CBF-based reactive controllers for safe multi-robot navigation and collaborative exploration in highly constrained underground mining environments.
• AMBITIOUS: Developed a safe, scalable, and delay-tolerant control architecture for coordinating heterogeneous networked multi-agents to perform IoT sensor data collection missions.
• SPEAR: Experimentally validated RL-based control algorithms on UAVs and developed a safety-focused architecture for deploying and testing these policies. Enhanced long-range aerial navigation and remote inspection using onboard sensors and safety-critical control.
• Dynamic aerial payload delivery: An aerial robot carrying a package follows a mobile ground robot autonomously and delivers the package on the ground robot while it is running.

Personal Projects

• Elasticopter: A novel shape-changing quadrotor mechanism and its controller are designed for carrying payloads of different sizes and masses efficiently.
• Obstacle avoidance for aerial robot: An environment is mapped using OctoMap with visual-inertial sensors; obstacle avoidance is achieved using an RRT*-based trajectory smoothened by fitting a minimum snap trajectory.
• Biped Locomotion: Kinematics modeled for a 3-foot Biped to create a trajectory for its locomotion.

---

Teaching and Mentoring Experience

Lecturing and Lab Instruction (Luleå University of Technology)

• 2025: Spacecraft Guidance, Navigation and Control (R7030R): Conducting space lab exercises using a space-robotic platform.
• 2025: Advanced Robotics (R7021E): ROS2, Gazebo, and Turtlebot-based lab-work and assignment preparation, conducting simulation and hardware lab exercises, and assignment evaluation.
• 2025/2024: Biorobotics (R7017E): ROS2, Gazebo, and quadruped-based lab-work and assignment preparation, conducting simulation and hardware lab exercises, and assignment evaluation.
• 2024: Spacecraft Guidance, Navigation and Control (R7030R): Conducting space lab exercises using a space-robotic platform.
• 2024: Biorobotics (R7017E): Lecture, lab-work, and assignment preparation, conducting the lab exercises and assignments evaluation.
• 2024/2023: Biorobotics / Robotics (R7010E): Lab-work and assignment evaluation.
• 2023: Spacecraft Guidance, Navigation and Control (R7030R): Conducting the space lab exercises using a space-robotic platform.

Teaching Assistant (IIIT Hyderabad)

• 2021: Advances in Robotics and Control (EC4.501): Quizzes and assignments: preparation and evaluation.
• 2020: Robotics: Dynamics and Control (EC4.401): Quizzes and assignments: preparation and evaluation.

Master's Thesis Supervision (LTU)

• 2025: Donald Låås: Control effort-optimal Model Predictive Control for space docking with acceleration-based terminal orientation constraint.
• 2024: Federico Gatti: Ensuring safe docking maneuvers floating platform using Nonlinear Model Predictive Control (NMPC).
• 2023: Manpreet Lotte: Modelling, Control and Vision-Based Docking of an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle.
• 2023: Maxime Zufferey: UAV Navigation & Object Detection in a GNSS-denied Environment.

---

• Reviewer: Active reviewer for top-tier journals and conferences, including TMECH, IROS, ICRA, CEP, and L-CSS (2020–Present).
• Workshop/Tutorial Organizer: Co-organized the ICUAS 2024 full-day workshop on Aerial Robotic Workers and delivered a tutorial on safety-critical adaptive control.