Members and People
PhD (Current)
PhD (Alumni)
Masters (Current)
Masters with Thesis
Masters (Alumni)
Undergraduates
Senior design Teams High school
Summer intern
Yonas Tadesse, PhD
Director of the Humanoid, Biorobotics and Smart Systems (HBS Lab) and Principal Investigator (PI) Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering,
Mechanical Engineering Department/ Affiliate to Electrical Engineering Department
/an affiliate to Alan MacDiarmid NanoTech Institute
Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science
The University of Texas at Dallas (UTD)
Group pictures
PhD Students /postdoc- Current
Research Interest • Biorobotics system • Manufacturing design • Optimization of energy
systems • Sustainable energy • Solar energy technologies
Current Project • Advanced manufacturing ,
Additive manufacturing • Bioinspired robotics
PhD Dissertation
Research Interest • Robotics • Smart materials • Soft Robotics
Current Project • Bioinspired robotics Jellyfish • Bioinspired robotics Octopus
PhD Dissertation
Research Interest • Biorobotics system • Machine Learning
Current Project • Humanoid Robots • Robotic Hands
PhD Dissertation
Armita Hamidi , PhD
(Assistant Professor )
Google Scholar Yara Almubarak (PhD Candidate)
Google Scholar Abhishek Singh (PhD Candidate)
PhD graduated/ Alumni
Lianjun Wu, PhD (Assistant Professor) Department of Manufacturing Engineering Georgia Southern University Statesboro Campus Statesboro, Georgia United States Google Scholar Dissertation: Twisted and Coiled
Polymer Muscles and Structures for
Robotics Application
Lokesh Kumar, PhD (Postdoc Research Associate) Miami University Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering Oxford, Ohio, United States Google Scholar Dissertation: iGrab Hand Orthosis:
Design and Development Using Twisted
and Coiled Polymer Muscles
Akshay Potnuru, PhD (Lecturer) University of Southern California Los Angeles, California United States Google Scholar Dissertation: Composite Filament
and Coiled SMA for the Fabrication
of Robots
Lianjun Wu, PhD
Lokesh Kumar, PhD
Akshay Potnuru, PhD
Armita Hamidi , PhD Mechanical Engineering, Department UTD Google Scholar Dissertation: Additive Manufacturing of
Heterogeneous Composites for Biomimetic
Robots
Mohsen Jafarzadeh, PhD (Research Faculty) University of Colorado Spring field, Colorado United States Google Scholar Dissertation: Creating Interactive Social
Robots and Multimodal Control of
Robotic Hands with Artificial Muscles
Armita Hamidi , PhD Mohsen Jafarzadeh, PhD
Masters (Alumni- Non Thesis)
Aniket Joshi
(Fall 2018)
Shameek Kulkarni
(Fall 2018)
Om Anand Sharma
( SP 2018)
Saumya Yadav
(spring 2017)
Yuechen Li
(summer 2016)
Rohit Bhattacharjee
(SP2015) with Dr. Balakrishnan
Srabonti Chakraborty (SP2015)
with Dr. Balakrishnan
Giridara Varma Elumalai (SP2015) with Dr. Balakrishnan
Vadivel Selvaraj
(SP2015) with Dr. Balakrishnan Arpita Nigam
(SP2015) with Dr. Gans Suhas Kopparam Babu
(SP2015) David Shawn Kennedy(SP2015)
with Dr. Gregg Sai Kuma Marri
(SP2015) Luis Naranjo (SP2015) with Dr.
Gregg
Masters (Current)
Current Project Research in Thermally Actuated Artificial Muscles (TCP Muscles) for Robotic Hand in Pick and Place Operation. Design, Fabrication and Characterization of the Artificial Muscles using Smart Materials to achieve Optimized output in resemblance to Human Behavior. LinkedIn
Current Project Soft robots Bioinspired
robotics Artificial Muscles
(TCP Muscles) 2-ply TCP
muscles embedded
Current Project Robotic hand Mechanism
design 2-Ply TCP
muscles Ventilator
Current Project Robotic hand
EMG controlled Testing and
Characterization of circuits Deep learning
Darshan Palani Vivek Panchal Matthew Muller Vikram Louis Michael
Masters with Thesis
Akshay Potnuru, with Thesis 2012 (MS) Thesis “Low Noise, Interactive
Robotic System for Psychiatric
Rehabilitation of Children”
Miles Larkin, with Thesis 2013 (MS) Thesis “A rotary
multimodal hybrid energy
harvesting device powered
by human motion.”
Johnross Ford, (MS) with Thesis in 2015 Thesis “A simulation
study of mirrored
designs of carbide
inserts of tunnel
boring machine
(TBM) disc cutters.”
Shrenik K. Jain, with Thesis 2017 (MS) Thesis “Fabrication of
Polylactide
Nanocomposite Filament
Using Melt Extrusion And
Filament Characterization
For 3D Printing”
Akshay Potnuru Miles Larkin,
Johnross Ford, Shrenik K. Jain,
Yara Almubarak, with Thesis 2018 (MS) Thesis “Embedded TCP and
SMA Actuators for Use in
Flexible Structures of
Bioinspired Robots and
Humanoids”
Abhishek G. Saxena with Thesis 2018 (MS) Thesis “A real-time
solution enabling
humanoids to efficiently
identify faces and facial
expressions”
Shrey Shah with Thesis 2019 (MS) Thesis “Numerical
Modeling and
Simulation of
Biomedical Devices
and Underwater
Biomimetic Robots”
Vivek Panchal with Thesis 2020(MS)
Thesis “Quadralimb:
Embedded TCP Actuators
in Silicone for Grasping
Tasks and Underwater
Soft Robots”
Yara Almubarak,
Abhishek G. Saxena
Shrey Shah
Vivek Panchal
Adwait Kulkarni (Spring 2015)
Aditya Bhattacharya (Spring 2015)
Mounika Viswanadha (Fall 2015 )
Seethal Jayasankar (Fall 2015 )
Rahul Krishnan (Fall 2015 )
Pranab Tahbildar (Fall 2015 )
Ishan Rastogi (Fall 2015 )
Anmol Sarin (Fall 2015)
Ashvath Sharma (Fall 2015)
Shradha Sharma (Fall 2015)
Keshav Anand (Fall 2015)
Bhuvna Kakodia (Fall 2015)
Adil Noor Mohammed (Fall 2015)
Tarang Sanjiv Brahme spring 2015
Yuan Gong (spring 2015 )
Ranjit Sreenivas (spring 2015 )
Drishti Shah (spring 2015 )
Ankit Tomar (spring 2015 )
Abhijeet Narwal (spring 2015 )
Alec Burns (spring 2014 )
Alex Kollaja (spring 2014 )
Sachin Babu (Summer 2012)
Manoj Kumar (Spring 2013)
Avinash Ramaprakash (Spring 2013)
Poojan Khanpara Debalina Ghosh
Undergraduates (Current)
Current Project
Artificial limbs Artificial muscles- SMA Computer Aided Design
and 3D Printing
Current Project
Artificial muscles- TCP Underwater robots
More information in LinkedIn
Current Project
Artificial muscles- SMA Artificial heart actuated
by SMA
Eric Wenliang Deng (2020) Yash Mahendra(2020) Sayyant Rath (2020)
Current Project
Orthotic hand iGrab hand
Current Project
Artificial muscles- TCPFL Octopus like robot
Current Project
Soft Pneumatic composite actuators (SPC)
Fludojelly
Danial Ali Mehkri(2020) Dorsa Mir Norouzi(2020) Anwer M. Abdurahman(2020)
Former Active members
Indrajeet Chauhan (2017) Anthony M. Gutierrez,(2018) Jasmine Copeland(2018) Nicole Maly (2018) Matthew Punnoose (2018) Jeremy Warren (2018)
Abraham Ayyash (2015) Mohammad Akram (2015)
Senior Design Teams and Groups
Hands On Team –EMG controlled prosthetic hand 2020 Robotic Hand Actuated by TCP Muscles 2018
The Hand and Neural Network Design Team 2018-2019 Octopus like robot 2018
EE EMG Team 2018 Control of Octopus like robot 2018
Robotic hand 2015 ; Senior design competition (First place )
Robotic hand EE -Robotic hand with STM32, 2017
Vibration suppression 2014
Jumping robot team 2014
Robot Arm 2013
Robchess 2012
Wafer handling 2013
High School and Summer Interns
Aditya Arjun
(Nanoexplorer 2015)
Chinwe Appio-Riley (Nanoexplorer 2015)
Rakib Siddique (Nanoexplorer 2015)
Mohamad Salahi (NSF RUE 2015)
Matthew Meyer
(RUE 2012)
Peter-Michael Webb Annesha Dutta Pedro Gaete Daniel D. Moore Elliott, Steven