Vishnu K. Narayanan I am a Research Scientist at ATR Intelligent Robotics and Communication Labs. in Kyoto, Japan. I am currently working on end to end perception and navigation for networked service and social robots in operating human populated environments. Until Dec. 2016, I was a Ph.D. student in Computer Science affiliated with INRIA Rennes - Bretagne Atlantique, while working with the Lagadic Team. I was advised by Dr. Marie Babel and also worked in close collaboration with Dr. Anne Spalanzani who is with the Chroma team at INRIA Grenoble. I also spent 3 months at the NTU-iCeiRA Laboratory at National Taiwan University during this period. In 2013 I received a Master's degree in Mechanical Engineering from University of Florida, and in 2011 I received a Bachelors's degree in Mechanical Engineering from Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham in India. Email :

I work in the broad field of Robotics, and I am specifically interested in developing algorithms that will allow a robot to naturally interact with/assist us human beings in order to accomplish complicated and tedious tasks. Therefore, my long term research goal, in general, is to develop sensing and control strategies that facilitates seamless and adaptive interaction between humans and robots, and apply the said strategies to current real world robots like intelligent vehicles, assistive robots and rehabilitation robots, that operate in human populated enviroments.

My present and short-term future work deals with:

• Integrating communication constraints within autonomous indoor navigation
• Functional Pedestrian-aware Navigation
• Exploring the question of how to share control among human users and assistive robots

Interests: Robotics, Human-Robot Interaction/Collaboration, Applied Computer Vison and Machine Learning.

Please click on the paper title to obtain the .pdf file.

Academic Journals

• V. K. Narayanan, F. Pasteau, M. Marchal, A. Krupa, M. Babel. "Vision-based adaptive assistance and haptic guidance for safe wheelchair corridor following". Computer Vision and Image Understanding (CVIU), 2016.
• F. Pasteau, V. K. Narayanan, M. Babel, F. Chaumette. "A visual servoing approach for autonomous corridor following and doorway passing in a wheelchair". Robotics and Autonomous Systems (RAS), 2016.
• N. Radhika, Babu Devasenapathi, R.Subramanian, R. Subramany, V. K. Narayanan. " Pattern recognition based surface roughness prediction in turning Hybrid Metal Matrix Composite using Random Forest algorithm". Industrial Lubrication and Tribology, 65(1):5, 2013.

International Conferences

• V. K. Narayanan, T. Miyashita, Y. Horikawa and N. Hagita. "A Transient-Goal driven Communication-aware Navigation Strategy for Large Human-Populated Environments". In IEEE/RSJ Int. Conf. on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2018.
• V. K. Narayanan, T. Miyashita, and N. Hagita. "Formalizing a Transient-Goal driven approach to Pedestrian-Aware Navigation". In IEEE Int. Symp. on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (ROMAN), 2018.
• L. Devigne, F. Pasteau, M. Babel, V. K. Narayanan, S. Guegan, P. Gallien. "Design of a haptic guidance solution for assisted power wheelchair navigation". In IEEE Int. Conf. on Systems, Man and Cybernetics (SMC), 2018.
• L. Devigne, M. Babel, F. Nouviale, V. K. Narayanan, F. Pasteau and P. Gallien. "Design of an immersive simulator for assisted power wheelchair driving". In IEEE/EMBS Int. Conf. on Rehabilitation Robotics (ICORR), 2017.
• V. K. Narayanan, A. Spalanzani, M. Babel. "A semi-autonomous framework for human-aware and user intention driven wheelchair mobility assistance". In IEEE/RSJ Int. Conf. on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2016.
• L. Devigne, V. K. Narayanan, F. Pasteau, M. Babel. "Low complex sensor-based shared control for power wheelchair navigation". In IEEE/RSJ Int. Conf. on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2016.
• V. K. Narayanan, A. Spalanzani, C. Luo, M. Babel. "Analysis of an adaptive strategy for equitably approaching and joining human interactions". In IEEE Int. Symp. on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (ROMAN), 2016.
• V. K. Narayanan, A. Spalanzani, F. Pasteau, M. Babel. "On equitably approaching and joining a group of interacting humans". In IEEE/RSJ Int. Conf. on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2015.
• V. K. Narayanan, F. Pasteau, M. Babel, F. Chaumette. "Visual servoing for autonomous doorway passing in a wheelchair using a single doorpost". In IEEE/RSJ IROS Workshop on Assistance and Service Robotics in a Human Environment, 2014.
• V. K. Narayanan, C. Crane. "Active Relearning for Robust On-Road Vehicle Detection and Tracking". In Int. Conf. on Control, Automation and Systems (ICCAS), 2013.

Thesis

• V. K. Narayanan. "Characterizing assistive shared control through vision-based and human-aware designs for wheelchair mobility assistance". PhD Thesis, INSA de Rennes, November 2016.

Address
ATR Intelligent Robotics and Communication Laboratories
2-2-2 Hikaridai, Keihanna Science City
Kyoto 619-0288, Japan.
Tel : +81 774 95 2626
Fax : +81 774 95 1408