BIOGRAPHY

Research interests

Robotics & Autonomous Systems, Collaborative Mobile Robots (Aerial/Terrestrial/Marine), Human-Robot Collaboration, Social Robotics, Reconfigurable Systems, Bioinspiration & Biomimetics, Robotic Vision & Audio, Machine Intelligence & Learning Algorithms, Optimization & Control System Engineering, Mechatronics, Robotic Product Development.

Selected Distinctions

  • Visiting Professor Brunel University London
  • Isambard Kingdom Brunel Academy Fellow (UK) 
  • Senior Member IEEE, USA
  • Distinguished Expert member of the ‘Waste Management &Technology Development Board’, Ministry of Science and Technology, Govt. of India 
  • Member, IEEE CSS Technology Conferences Editorial Board (TCEB) 
  • Distinguished Reviewer Board Member for ACM Transactions on Intelligent Systems and Technology

Selected Awards

  • Brunel Academy Fellowship in Human Collaborative Digital Manufacturing 2023
  • Ranked 2nd in the IROS – METRICS HEART-MET Assistive Robot Activity Recognition Challenge 2022 held at IEEE/RSJ
  • Advisor and Member of Team RIL IISc (Ranked 9th /11) at the Benchmark Autonomous Robot Navigation (BARN) Challenge @ IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Philadelphia, USA, 2022 
  • Advisor and Member of Team RIL IISc (Ranked 3rd /11) at RAMI for Aerial Robot Competition @ IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2021) Prague, Czech Republic, 2021 
  • Advisor and Member of Team RIL IISc (Ranked 7th /9) at Robothon 2021 Grand Challenge organized by Munich School of Robotics and Machine Intelligence (MSRM) Technical University of Munich (TUM), Munich, 2021 
  • My first PhD guided student awarded the  Prime Minister’s Research Fellowship (PMRF), India 2021 
  • Best Student Conference Paper Award Finalist: IEEE-ICROS ICCAS, Busan, S. Korea, 2020 
  • Singapore Good Design (SG Mark) Award; Virgo Intelligent Surveillance and Reconnaissance Robot; Singapore, 2017
  • IEEE Industry Applications Society (IAS) Best PhD Thesis Award, Texas, USA, 2015 
  • Best Student Conference Paper Award, Society of Instrument and Control Engineers (SICE) Annual Conference, Sapporo, Japan, 2014 
  • IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society (OES) Scholarship, Massachusetts, USA, 2013 
  • Best Student Conference Paper Award: IEEE-ICROS ICCAS, Jeju, S. Korea, 2012
  • IIT Gold Medal, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), BHU Varanasi, India, 2010 received from Hon’ble President of India Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam
  • LG Electronics India Annual Innovation Award, India, 2010 
  • LG Electronics India Graduate Scholarship for Outstanding Academic and Leadership Excellence, India, 2010

Brief curriculum vitae

Dr. Abhra Roy Chowdhury is a tenure-track Assistant Professor at the Center for Product Design and Manufacturing, Division of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Science Bangalore.

Dr. Abhra Roy Chowdhury was holding a Senior Research Fellow position in Autonomous Mobile Robotics with the Temasek Labs at Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD). He was also associated with Aerial Innovation Research (AIR) Lab and Robotics Innovation Lab in the Engineering Product Development (EPD) pillar @ SUTD. He was working with the Temasek Principal Investigators (PI), Prof. Foong Shaohui, Prof. Soh Gim Song and previously with SUTD-MIT Design Center PI Prof. Kristin L. Wood. During his tenure he had received appreciation letters from MIT Prof. Sangbae Kim and Prof. Alexandra Techet for the SUTD-MIT postdoc. He had the opportunity to connect and ideate on various topics of robotics with globally acclaimed roboticists. (see my site (link))

He was serving as a Teaching Fellow with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), National University of Singapore (NUS) in 2015-2016. He earned his PhD degree in Biorobotics from ECE, NUS in 2015. He completed his PhD studies in the research group of Assoc. Prof. Sanjib Kumar Panda at the Electrical Machines and Drives Laboratory (EMDL). He received the NUS PhD Research Scholarship 2011-2014. During PhD he collaborated with Defence Science and Technology Agency (DSTA) Singapore, TMSI – NUS and Office of Naval Research (ONR) USA.

He has obtained his M.Tech degree specializing in Control Systems from the Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT BHU) Varanasi, India in 2010. He was awarded the prestigious IIT Gold medal by the Honorable president of India (Late) Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam. He was associated as a Senior Engineer at Product Platform Hub, LG Electronics India in 2010. He has served as an Intern at General Electric, John F. Welch Technology Center (JFWTC), Bangalore, India.

He has been the author and the reviewer of quality research articles in peer reviewed journals. He has delivered talks in top-tier international conferences for e.g. IEEE ICRA, International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC) World Congress etc. He had the opportunity to showcase his research work and share views in some of the internationally prominent research groups/institutes across the globe like IEEE Industry Applications Society U.S.A, IFAC World Congress France, National Oceanography Center (NOC) UK, Society of Instrument and Control Engineers (SICE) Japan, Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems (ICROS) S.Korea, Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMART), Tropical Marine Science Institute (TMSI) Singapore, Temasek Labs Singapore, SUTD-MIT Singapore design center (IDC) and industry platforms organized by Liquid Robotics Inc. USA , Hitachi Research Laboratory Ibaraki Japan and Defense Science and Technology Agency (DSTA) Singapore.

His work on bioinspired robots has found place in many global media including The Forbes, The Asian Scientist, The Straits Times, The Times of India etc. (see my site (link1, link2))