Curriculum Vitae (CV)

Download PDF: CV_Brual_Shah

BRUAL SHAH – Ph.D.

Center of Advanced Manufacturing (CAM)
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA – 90089, USA

Contact:
Phone: +1-213-280-7265
E-mail: brualsha at usc dot edu.
Website: https://brual.info/

CAREER GOALS:

Pursue a career in the field of control and planning for autonomous systems with a specialization in:

Physics-based motion planning algorithms for unmanned system
Intelligent decision-making algorithms for realizing operations of autonomous systems
Machine learning-based approaches to enhance the performance of autonomous robots
Human-robot collaboration

EDUCATION:

Ph.D., Department of Mechanical Engineering (Summer 2016)
University of Maryland, College Park, MD
Dissertation Topic: Planning for Autonomous Operation of Unmanned Sea Surface Vehicles (USV)
Advisor: Professor Satyandra K. Gupta
Masters in Telecommunication Engineering (Spring 2013)
Bachelors of Engineering – Electronics & Telecommunication (May 2011)
K.J. Somaiya College of Engineering, Vidyavihar, University of Mumbai

RESEARCH AND TEACHING EXPERIENCE:

University of Southern California
Postdoctoral Research Associate (August 2016 – Present)
Realization of Robotic Systems Lab and Center for Advanced Manufacturing

Developed a dynamics-aware reactive planner for Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGV) for avoiding dynamic obstacles while operating on uneven terrains.
Developed a simulation environment for hybrid (human-robot collaboration) work cell assembly operating using Gazebo and Robot Operating System (ROS).
Developed a framework to proactively handle contingencies in hybrid work cell assembly operation.
Selected among the top 5 finalists and the only team from USA for KUKA Innovation Award 2017

University of Maryland
Graduate Research Assistant (Jan 2012 – July 2016)
Maryland Robotics Center and Simulation-based System Design Laboratory

Developed a real-time planner named Risk and congestion-aware trajectory planners (RCAP & A-RCAP) for operation of Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USV) in an environment with congested civilian traffic.
Developed and deployed planning algorithms for approach, follow and COLREGs behavior of USV.
Developed a planning algorithm for USV, which looks ahead multiple stages in time and computes a path which minimizes the overall risk of the cluttered operating scenario.
Developed a speed up an algorithm by adaptively varying the control action primitive based on the congestion of the operating scenario which enables USV to compute low risk paths in real time.
Successfully developed classification models for each COLREG rule using SVM technique.
Implemented several complex human-like maneuvers for each COLREG rule using machine learning techniques for indication of COLREGs compliant behavior to other sailing vessels.
Developed a simulation environment to test and evaluate the developed algorithm.
Incorporated WAM-V simulation model with the existing simulation environment for improving planning by designing a new Atomic Maneuver model for the planner.
Implemented LCM communication interface for higher level planning interface to communicate with low level ARM-9 boat controller.
Conducted physical experiments to evaluate the developed planning approaches for approach, follow and COLREGs behavior on physical WAM-V platform in collaboration with Florida Atlantic University (FAU).

University of Maryland
Teaching Assistant (Fall 2014 & 2015)
Course: Bio-Inspired Robotics

Assisted undergraduate students in designing the mechanical and electrical components of their bio-inspired robots, and programming the walking gait of the robots using Arduino.

PUBLICATIONS:

Ph.D. Thesis:

B. C. Shah. Planning for Autonomous Operation of Unmanned Surface Vehicles. Ph.D. Thesis. 2016. PDF

Journal Article:

B. C. Shah, and S.K. Gupta. Long Distance Path Planning for Unmanned Surface Vehicles in Complex Marine Environments. IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering, doi: 10.1109/JOE.2019.2909508, 2019. PDF
B. C. Shah, P. Švec, I.R. Bertaska, W. Klinger, A. J. Sinisterra, K. von Ellenrieder, M. Dhanak, and S.K. Gupta. Resolution-Adaptive Risk-Aware Trajectory Planning for Surface Vehicles Operating in Congested Civilian Traﬃc. Autonomous Robots. PDF
I.R. Bertaska, B. C. Shah, K. von Ellenrieder, P. Svec, W. Klinger, A.J. Sinisterra, M. Dhanak, and S.K. Gupta. Experimental evaluation of automatically-generated behaviors for USV operations. Ocean Engineering, 106:496-514, 2015. PDF
P. Švec, A. Thakur, E. Raboin, B.C. Shah, and S.K. Gupta. Target Following with Motion Prediction for Unmanned Surface Vehicle Operating in Cluttered Environments. Autonomous Robots, 36(4): 383-405, 2014. PDF

Full Paper Refereed Publications in Conferences and Workshops:

P. Rajendran, S. Thakar, A.M. Kabir, B.C. Shah, S.K. Gupta. Context-Dependent Search for Generating Paths for Redundant Manipulators in Cluttered Environments. IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, Macau, China, November 2019.
B. C. Shah, and S. K. Gupta. Speeding up A* Search on Visibility Graphs Defined Over Quadtrees to Enable Long Distance Path Planning for Unmanned Surface Vehicles. International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling (ICAPS’ 16), London, UK, June 12 – 17, 2016. PDF
B. C. Shah, P. Švec, A. Thakur, and S.K. Gupta. Path Planning for Unmanned Vehicles Operating in Time-Varying Flow Fields. ICAPS 2016 Workshop on Planning and Robotics (PlanRob), London, UK, June 12 – 17, 2016. PDF
B. C. Shah, P. Švec, I. R. Bertaska, W. Klinger, A. J. Sinisterra, K. von Ellenrieder, M. Dhanak, and S. K. Gupta. Trajectory Planning with Adaptive Control Primitives for Autonomous Surface Vehicles Operating in Congested Civilian Traffic. IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS ’14), Chicago, IL, USA, September 14-18, 2014. PDF
P. Švec, B.C. Shah, I.R. Bertaska, W. Klinger, A. J. Sinisterra, K. von Ellenrieder, M. Dhanak, and S.K. Gupta. Adaptive sampling based COLREGS-compliant obstacle avoidance for autonomous surface vehicles. ICRA 2014 Workshop on Persistent Autonomy for Marine Robotics (PAMR ’14), Hong Kong, China, June 2014. PDF
P. Švec, B. C. Shah, I. R. Bertaska, J. Alvarez, A. J. Sinisterra, K. von Ellenrieder, M. Dhanak, and S. K. Gupta. Dynamics-Aware Target Following for an Autonomous Surface Vehicle Operating under COLREGs in Civilian Traffic. IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS ’13), Tokyo, Japan, November 3-7, 2013. PDF
I. B. Bertaska, J. Alvarez, A. J. Sinisterra, K. Ellenrieder, M. Dhanak, B. Shah, P. Švec, and S. K. Gupta. Experimental Evaluation of Approach Behavior for Autonomous Surface Vehicles. 6th Annual Dynamic Systems and Control Conference (DSCC ’13), Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, USA, October 21-23, 2013. PDF
P. Švec, A. Thakur, B.C. Shah, and S.K. Gupta. USV trajectory planning for time-varying motion goals in an environment with obstacles. ASME Mechanism and Robotics Conference, Chicago, IL, August 2012. PDF

Poster Presentations:

B. C. Shah and S. K. Gupta. Path Planning for Unmanned Vehicles Operating in Time-Varying Flow Fields. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA ’15), Seattle, WA, May 26-30, 2015.
B. C. Shah and S. K. Gupta. Resolution Adaptive Risk-Aware Trajectory Planning for Unmanned Surface Vehicles Operating in Congested Civilian Traffic. Computers and Information in Engineering Conference, Buffalo, NY, 2014.
B. C. Shah and S. K. Gupta. Development of Autonomy for Unmanned Surface Vehicles. Performance Metrics for Intelligent Systems (PerMIS) Workshop, College Park, MD, 2012.

Patents:

B. C. Shah, P. Švec, and S.K. Gupta. Surface Vehicles Trajectory Planning Systems, Devices and Methods. In Process.
R. K. Malhan, T. Centea, S. K. Gupta, A. M. Kabir, B. C. Shah, and A. V. Shembekar, “Hybrid Formation of Multi-Layer Prepreg Composite Sheet Layup”, U.S. Provisional Patent 62/715,497. Filled on August 7, 2018.
S. K. Gupta, A. M. Kabir, and B. C. Shah, “Setup Planning, Trajectory Planning, and Parameter Selection for Robotic Finishing”, U.S. Provisional Patent 62/661,441, Filled on April 23, 2018.

Awards:

First place in Aerodef Poster Challenge at Aerodef Manufacturing Conference, Long Beach, CA. May 2019.
First place in Best Paper Award at IEEE International Symposium on Safety, Security, and Rescue Robotics (SSRR) Conference in 2018.
Third place in Best Paper Award at ASME 13th Manufacturing Science and Engineering Conference (MSEC), 2018.
Judge’s Choice Award for poster at AST-NSF-ASME-SME Workshop on Challenges in Representing Manufacturing Processes for Systemic Sustainability Assessments at ASME 13th Manufacturing Science and Engineering Conference (MSEC), 2018.
First place in Agile Robotics for Industrial Automation Competition (ARIAC) organized by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in 2017.
Finalist in KUKA Innovation Award Competition in 2017.

LEADERSHIP:

Team Leader – Robocon Club (2011)
K. J. Somaiya College of Engineering, Mumbai, India

Led the team of 20 members who participated in a national robotics competition named Robocon for the first time representing our college.
Achieved 21st position out of 53 teams who participated across the country.
Designed and built a human-driven robot and an autonomous Line-Follower Robot to perform the designed task of the competition.

PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIP:

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers since June 2013.
American Society of Mechanical Engineers since June 2013