
Santhakumar Mohan got his Ph.D. (Robotics and Control) from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai (India) in 2010. From June 2010 to March 2011, he worked as an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the National Institute of Technology Calicut (NITC), Kerala (India). He then worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon (Republic of Korea). In 2012, he joined the faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Indore. He is holding visiting faculty positions at IISc Bangalore, India, BSTU, Belgorod, Russia, KAIST, Daejeon, Republic of Korea, RWTH Aachen, Germany, and ECN, France. His active research areas include Service and Field Robots in specific, design & motion control of underwater and wheeled mobile robots, Parallel Robotic Platforms, Assistive and Rehabilitation Robots. Furthermore, he has received the outstanding young Scientist for the year 2014 from Korea Robotics Society, European Master on Advanced Robotics Plus (EMARO+) fellowship (2018-2019), Alexander von Humboldt (AvH) Fellowship (2016–2017), Satellite across virtual institutes (SAVI) fellowship (2013-2014), World-class university fellowship (2011- 2012) and Brian Korean 21 (BK2) fellowship (2011). He has published more than 100 articles in various journals and conference proceedings. He has edited three books and completed seven sponsored projects.
Currently, he is serving as Technical Editor, IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics, Associate Editor, IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, and ASME Letters in Dynamic Systems and Control.
Broadly, I work in the field of Robotics and Control. Specifically, I have research interests as follows:
- Field Robotics, Mobile Manipulators and Underwater Robotic Systems (Dynamics and Control)
- Parallel Robotic Platforms (Mechanical Design, Dynamics and Control)
- Assistive and Rehabilitation Robots (Lower Limb Rehabilitation Robots)
@ IIT Palakkad
Kinematics and Dynamics of Machinery (Even Semesters)
Measurements, Instrumentation, and Control (Odd Semesters)
Mechanics and Control of Robotic Manipulators (Odd Semesters)
Wheeled Mobile Robots (Even Semesters)
NPTEL Courses
Wheeled Mobile Robots (Jan-Apr, 8 weeks course)
Mechanics and Control of Robotic Manipulators (Jul-Oct, 8 weeks course)
@ IIT Indore
Kinematics and Dynamics of Machines (Odd Semesters)
Dynamic and Control Systems (Odd Semesters)
Machine Design I and II (Even Semesters)
Robotics (Even Semesters)
Mobile Robotics (Even Semesters)
Robotic Control Systems (PG elective)
Current Members:
Arun Krishnan (PhD candidate)
Isaac John (PhD candidate)
Avinash S Pramod (PhD candidate @ IIT Madras, Supervisor: Prof.T.Asokan)
Prashant Raturi (Research associate)
Mervin Thomas (Postdoctoral fellow)
Former Members:
Yogesh Singh (PhD, 2016), Assistant Professor, NIT Silchar
Pandurang Londhe (Visiting scholar, PhD, 2017), Assistant Professor, Government College of Engineering, Chandrapur
Jayant Kumar Mohanta (PhD, 2018), Assistant Professor, IIT Jodhpur
Swati Mishra (PhD, 2020), Assistant Professor, Symbiosis University of Applied Sciences, Indore
Jagadeesh Kadiyam (PhD, 2021), Assistant Professor, IIT Mandi
Meera C S (Visiting scholar, PhD, 2021), Assistant Manager, L&T SMART WORLD & COMMUNICATION
Sandra C (Research associate, 2020-2021), Engineer, KPIT Bangalore
Parvathi S (MS by Research, 2021), PhD student, Imperial College London
Ravi Prakash (Visiting scholar, PhD, 2022), Postdoctoral fellow at TU Delft
Vasanth Kumar (Visiting scholar, PhD, 2022), Team Lead, Kawasaki Robotics (USA)
Kshetrimayum Lochan (Postdoctoral fellow, 2022), Postdoctoral fellow, Khalifa University, UAE
Saravana Kannan (Project associate/Embedded Engineer, 2021-2022), Engineer, Bosch Global Software Technologies Private Limited (BGSW), Coimbatore
Rubesh Thirumani (Project associate, 2022), Co-Founder, RobotoAI Technologies
Surya Selvaraju (Project engineer, 2022), Co-Founder, RobotoAI Technologies
Srikanth Sampath (Project engineer, 2022), Co-Founder, RobotoAI Technologies
Meenakshi S (Postdoctoral fellow, 2021-2022), Associate professor, Chennai Insitute of Technology, Chennai
On-going Funded Projects
1. Project Title: Robotics and Automation in Agriculture
- Funding Agency: Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), India
- Duration: 2020-2023
- Budget: Rs. 51.84 Lacs
- Project Lead: Prof. L. Behera (IIT Kanpur), Total Budget: Rs. 194.26 Lacs
2. Project Title: Design and Development of an intelligent Underwater Vehicle with a Manipulator for offshore oil/gas and other marine applications
- Funding Agency: Naval Research Board (NRB), India
- Duration: 2020-2023
- Budget: Rs. 45.25 Lacs
3. Project Title: (CAIR/ CARS 67) Robust operational space motion control of a waist assistive powered exoskeleton
- Funding Agency: Centre for Artificial Intelligence & Robotics (CAIR), Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO), India
- Duration: 2021-2022
- Budget: Rs. 31.76 Lacs
4. Project Title: Design and Development of an Intervention-class Underwater Robotic Vehicle with Tilting Thrusters for Marine Applications
- Funding Agency: IIT Palakkad Technology IHub Foundation (IPTIF), India
- Duration: 2021-2025
- Budget: Rs. 78 Lacs
5. Project Title: Design, Development and Control of a Multi-purpose Mobile Manipulator for Intelligent and Collaborative Manipulation Tasks
- Funding Agency: IIT Palakkad Technology IHub Foundation (IPTIF), India
- Duration: 2021-2025
- Budget: Rs. 79 Lacs
6. Project Title: (#22(0829)/19/EMR-II) Design and Development of a new sitting-type lower limb rehabilitation robot
- Funding Agency: Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), India
- Duration: 2020-2023
- Budget: Rs. 23.21 Lacs
7. Project Title: (CRG/2018/000400) Bio-inspired Hybrid Underwater Vehicle for Ocean Observations
- Funding Agency: Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), India
- Duration: 2019-2022
- Budget: Rs. 28.85 Lacs
8. Project Title: (#19-19-00692) Development of a hybrid robotic system based on a passive orthosis and an active parallel manipulator for the lower limb rehabilitation
- Funding Agency: Russian Science Foundation (RSF), Russia
- Duration: 2019-2022
- Budget: 18 Million Russian Rubles (approximately Rs. 190 Lacs)