Sandeep S Zachariah

Sandeep S Zachariah

MS in Robotics student @ Carnegie Mellon University

CV

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Education

Carnegie Mellon University — Pittsburgh, USA   (2024 – Present)
MS in Robotics, Robotics Institute
GPA: 4.11 / 4.0
Courses: Robot Localization and Mapping, Machine Learning, Robot Learning
National Institute of Technology Calicut — Kerala, India   (2018 – 2022)
B.Tech in Electronics and Communication Engineering
GPA: 9.75 / 10   ·   Institute Rank 1
Courses: Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Computer Vision, Embedded Systems, Signal Processing
St. Thomas Residential School — Thiruvananthapuram, India   (2016 – 2018)
Indian School Certificate (ISC)
Grade: 98.5%

Research Experience

Carnegie Mellon University, Robotics Institute — Pittsburgh, USA   (Sep 2024 – Present)
Graduate Research Assistant, Kantor Lab
SLAM and 3D reconstruction for forest environments. Built MapForest — a modular field robotics system for LiDAR-inertial mapping and invasive species localization (arXiv). Ongoing thesis: merging under-canopy and above-canopy maps by maximizing mutual information in a shared latent space of tree-likelihood fields. Advisor: Prof. Abhisesh Silwal.
Indian Institute of Technology Delhi — New Delhi, India   (July 2022 – July 2024)
Project Scientist
Leveraging LLMs and VLMs for embodied AI — open-world perception, task planning, and world modeling for field and assistive robots. Developed the autonomy stack for an indigenous mobile manipulator; worked with seven undergraduate students and one doctoral student on language and skill modules. Advisors: Prof. Rohan Paul & Prof. P.V.M Rao.
Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology (IIST) — Thiruvananthapuram, India   (Apr 2021 – Sep 2021)
Project Intern
Modelling, control, and simulation of quadruped robots — CLIK algorithm, Composite Rigid Body and Recursive Newton-Euler dynamics, joint-space and task-space inverse dynamics control. Advisor: Prof. Sam K. Zachariah.
Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology (IIST) — Thiruvananthapuram, India   (May 2019 – July 2019)
Summer Intern
Modelling, control, and simulation of a 2R robotic manipulator — Euler-Lagrange dynamics, SolidWorks CAD, MATLAB/SIMULINK control design, ANSYS structural analysis. Advisor: Prof. Sam K. Zachariah.

Publications

MapForest: A Modular Field Robotics System for Forest Mapping and Invasive Species Localization
Sandeep S. Zachariah, Francisco Yandun, Sachet Korada, Abhisesh Silwal
arXiv preprint
[arXiv]   [Website]

Generating Open-World & Multi-Hierarchy Scene Graphs for Human-instructed Manipulation Tasks via Foundation Models
Sandeep S. Zachariah, Aman Tambi, Moksh Malhotra, P. V. M. Rao and Rohan Paul
ICRA 2024: 2nd Workshop on Mobile Manipulation and Embodied Intelligence
[Paper]   [Website]

G2TR: Generalized Grounded Temporal Reasoning for Robot Instruction Following by Combining Large Pre-trained Models
Riya Arora, Niveditha Narendranath, Aman Tambi, Sandeep S. Zachariah, Souvik Chakraborty, Rohan Paul
arXiv preprint
[Paper]   [Website]

Generalized Grounded Temporal Reasoning with Foundation Models for Language-guided Robot Manipulation
Riya Arora, Niveditha Narendranath, Sandeep S. Zachariah, Aman Tambi, Souvik Chakraborty and Rohan Paul
ICRA 2024: Physical Human-Robot Interaction Workshop
[Paper]

Incorporating Foundation Model Priors in Modeling Novel Objects for Robot Instruction Following in Unstructured Environments
Moksh Malhotra, Aman Tambi, Sandeep S. Zachariah, P. V. M. Rao and Rohan Paul
ICRA 2024: 3D Visual Representations for Robot Manipulation
[Paper]

Service & Teaching

Paper Reviewer   (2024 – 2026)
IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering (T-ASE 2025, 2026)
IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 2024)
Teaching Assistant   (Aug 2023 – Nov 2023)
COL864 Embodied AI — Indian Institute of Technology Delhi
Evaluation and development of Reinforcement Learning assignments in collaboration with a PhD student.
Robot Fabrication and Integration   (Mar 2022 – May 2024)
Interdisciplinary team with IIT Delhi and Nex Robotics Pvt. Ltd., Mumbai — developed an indigenous mobile manipulator for outdoor environments. Responsibilities: software stack design, sensor suite selection (3D/2D LiDARs, RGBD cameras, microphones, F/T sensors).
DRDO Technology Transfer & Field Experiments   (July 2022 – May 2024)
Led robot field experiments for the Defence Research and Development Organisation (India). Technology and know-how transfer to research agency stakeholders.

Skills

Robotics Platforms: Clearpath Husky, UR5e, Franka Emika Panda, Robotiq 3F-Gripper, Velodyne VLP-16, Hokuyo LiDAR, Intel RealSense, OAK-D, Amiga, Nvidia Orin

Programming: Python, C++, MATLAB, C, Verilog

Frameworks & Tools: ROS/ROS2, PyTorch, OpenCV, Docker, LaTex, SolidWorks, ANSYS, Proteus, LTSpice

Infrastructure: Linux, GPU cluster management, network setup, fine-tuning of large language models

Awards & Honors