Viswa Narayanan Sankaranarayanan

I am a PhD Researcher at Luleå University of Technology (LTU), where I am supported by a prestigious Marie Skłodowska-Curie Early Stage Research Fellowship (ITN). My doctoral dissertation is focused on Barrier Functions for Deliberate Contact Applications.

My core expertise lies in the theoretical development and real-world implementation of safe, precise, and robust control for heterogeneous multi-robot systems. I have developed excellent proficiency in model predictive control (MPC) and Control Barrier Function (CBF)-based controllers, which I apply to diverse platforms, including aerial, ground, and legged robots, for various complex applications. My research goal is to ensure guaranteed safety and reliability for planning and policy deployment, especially when operating in dynamic or uncertain field environments.

I have extensive practical experience in the rapid development and integration of software and hardware pipelines, utilizing tools such as ROS/ROS2, Gazebo, and Docker.

Research Interests

• Robust, adaptive, and constrained control for uncertain and delayed systems.
• Nonlinear Control and Formal Guarantees.
• Dynamic Coordination and Multi-Robot Systems.
• Control Barrier Function (CBF) safety for Reinforcement Learning (RL) policy deployment.
• Hierarchical shared control for remote inspection and telemanipulation.
• Coordinated control of legged robots and aerial manipulators.

Key Projects

I have contributed to several high-profile European Union (EU) and industrial projects, focusing on applying safety-critical control to real-world applications in challenging environments:

• AEROTRAIN (Marie Skłodowska-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 UAVs on moving targets.
• PERSEPHONE & AMBITIOUS (EU Horizon): Implemented CBF-based reactive controllers for heterogeneous multi-robot navigation in constrained environments. Developed a safe, scalable, delay-tolerant control architecture for coordinating heterogeneous multi-agents.
• SPEAR (EU Horizon): Experimentally validated RL-based control algorithms on UAVs and developed a safety-focused architecture for deploying and testing these policies.
• Industrial Projects (e.g., SP 14 - Sustainable Underground Mining): Involved in the field evaluation of reactive controllers for mine and shaft inspection using UAVs.

Teaching and Mentoring

• Lecturing and Coursework (LTU): Conducts lab work and assignment preparation for courses including Advanced Robotics, Biorobotics, and Spacecraft Guidance, Navigation and Control, focusing on ROS2, Gazebo, and hardware platforms like quadruped and space-robotic platforms.
• Workshops & Tutorials: Co-organized the ICUAS 2024 full-day workshop on Aerial Workers and presented a tutorial on "Robust and adaptive control techniques for UAVs".
• Master’s Thesis Supervision: Mentored several Master’s students for their theses, including:
  • Donald Låås: Control effort-optimal Model Predictive Control for space docking with acceleration-based terminal orientation constraint (2025).
  • Federico Gatti: Ensuring safe docking maneuvers floating platform using Nonlinear Model Predictive Control (NMPC) (2024).
  • 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 (2023).

Education

• PhD in Robotics and Control Engineering (Dec 2021 – Feb 2026 est.)
  • Luleå University of Technology, Sweden
• MS (by Research) in Electronics and Communication Engineering (July 2019 – December 2021)
  • International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad, India
• BE in Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering (Aug 2011 – May 2015)
  • SRM Institute of Science and Technology, Chennai, India