Rohan A.

Thakker
Final year, Mechanical Engineering,
Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology, Nagpur, India.
Mobile: +91 9892380077/8007498953
whizkidrohan@gmail.com
Website: http://www.inobotics.blogspot.in/

Acadamic Results
CGPA till 6th Semester: 7.54/10
Entrance Exam: AIEEE 2010 (All India Rank: 7776 among more than 1 million students)
12th Grade Overall % marks (HSC Board 2010) = 83%
10th Grade Overall % marks (ICSE Board 2008) = 90.7%

About Me
Robotics is my passion. It is my hobby to develop and implement new ideas. I am a total workaholic
and have the ability to work long hours, with sleepless nights. I love teaching and mentoring
projects; this also gives me leadership experience. It is my aim to develop revolutionary technology
which can help in making peoples life better and safer.

Internships

Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh.

5/5/2013 19/7/2013
Project under Prof. Howie Choset on Implementing SLAM using structured light LASER scanner on
snake robot.
SINE Lab, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay
5/5/2013 3/7/2013
Project under Prof. C. Amarnath, Mechanical Dept., IIT Bombay on Design, Control and Fabrication of
Snake Robot.
Technophilia Systems
Summer 2011 (2 weeks)
Hands-on training on microcontrollers, sensors, wireless communication.
Projects*
(*click headings to access the video)
1) Design, Fabrication and Control of Reconfigurable Robot
(On-going)
Final Year Thesis Project Under:
Dr. Shital Chiddarwar
s

Implemented a novel idea of a

reconfigurable robot which can
transform from a snake robot into a 2
leg walking robot with multiple
configurations.
Developed a software architecture on
Ubuntu 12.04 using ROS Groovy.
Developed a testing platform for

kinematic analysis and visualization in Matlab using sim-mechanics toolbox.

Currently working on dynamic balancing using ZMP approach to design a walking gait for biped
configuration
Video:
2) Implementing SLAM with Motion Planning on Snake Robot
May-July 2013
Under: Prof. Howie Choset at Bio-Robotics Lab, Robotics Institute Carnegie Mellon University.

The above figure shows 4 sucessive pointclouds(RGBY colors) taken from a Structured Light LASER
Scanner attached to the head of the snake robot. A path planning algorithm is also implemented
which helps the robot decide where it has to move after each scan. Iterative- Closest-Point
Algorithm or ICP is used for registration process.
3) Design, Control and Fabrication of 2-Feet Humanoid Robot
(On-going)
Leading a team of 10 students to participate in Robogames 2014 and FIRA 2015 International
Humanoid Robot Competition
20 DOF actuated using Dynamixel Servo Motors
Developed a software architecture in ROS Groovy on Ubuntu 12.04
Developing a simulation platform in GAZEBO
Fabricated using aluminium sheet metal on CNC Milling Machine.
4) Blind Navigator embedded device with voice controlled Android App
Jan 2013
rd
Winner at 3 position ($1000) in Texas Instruments Analog Design Contest 2013

This device uses ultrasonic sensors and vibrator motors to give haptic feedback to assist blind people
in walking.
5) Biped Robot (1st prototype of walking robots)
Aug-Sept 2012
6 Degrees of Freedom, actuated using 6 (15kgf.cm) servo
motors.
Walking gait generated using Passive Static Balancing.
Controlled using single AtMega16 Microcontroller
Lipo Battery for power source
Featured article in Times of India Newspaper.

6) Design, Control and Fabrication of Snake Robot

UNDER: Prof. C. Amarnath at SINE LAB, Mechanical Dept. IIT Bombay.

May-July 2012

The snake robot has an embedded wireless camera in the head, which makes it easy to control
from a remote computer using XIGBEE interface.
Control unit made using a single microcontroller AtMega 8535 embedded into the tail of the
robot.
Fabricated using rapid prototyping.
Robot supports wheel-less locomotion enabling it to navigate in rough terrains such as sand,
grass, etc. Making it ideal for spying, inspection, search & rescue, many other applications.
7) Autonomous Ball Collecting Robot.
2011
Video:- http://inobotics.blogspot.in/2012/09/ball-collecting-robot.html
8) Micromouse or Maze solving robot using Image Processing.
2011
Video:- http://inobotics.blogspot.in/2012/09/micro-mouse-using-image-processing-in.html

9) 5 degree of freedom arm integrated Bluetooth controller on Android.

UNDER: Prof. P. M. Padole(Mechanical Dept. VNIT Nagpur) and
Prof. K. Surender(Electronics Dept. VNIT Nagpur).
10) Touch Screen controlled 5 degree of freedom robotic arm.

2011

Video:- http://inobotics.blogspot.in/2012/09/touch-screen-controlled-robotic-arm.html
11) Made Android Mobile Application for Consortium 2012, Management festival of NIT
Nagpur.
12) Virtual Drawing Pad:

2011

Video:- http://inobotics.blogspot.in/2012/09/virtual-drawing-pad-using-image.html
13) Micro-Controlled Based Projects:

2011

Mobile phone (DTMF) Controlled robot.

Wireless Communication using A434 module.
Touch screen controlled robot.
14) Multi-Colour Line follower using Matlab (Summer 2011):
Video:- http://inobotics.blogspot.in/2012/09/multi-colour-line-folower-using-image.html

15) Made a manually controlled underwater navigation robot (Winter 2010):

The robot was made to take part in the Reconnaissance Event at IIT Kanpur Techfest
2010.

Experience

Leading a team of 10 students to participate in Robo Games 2014 and FIRA 2015
International Humanoid Robotics competitions.

Winner at 3rd position (among 330+ teams from all over the country) in Texas Instruments
Analog Design Contest 2013

Winner at Technodox Paper Presentation Competition of Axis 2012 for Research Paper on
Snake Robot (1st under Electronics and 2nd under Mechanical category).

Technical Advisor of IEEE VNIT student Chapter. I have been taking active part in teaching
Micro-controller programming, Image Processing, Humanoid Robotics, etc; in the IEEE
workshops of VNIT Nagpur, teaching more than 100 students at a time.

Technical Secretary of Mechanical Engineering Society (MES), founder of Mechanical

Innovation Cell, where I am mentoring 2 teams to make a CNC Drill Machine and a Drum
Playing Machine.

Event Manager of Autonomous Robotics of Axis 2012 (Technical Festival of VNIT), conducted
a competition to make a line follower which can avoid obstacles in its path and resume the
line.

Winner at 3rd position at NIT Conclave Technical Presentation on Designing of an Automatic

Badminton Practicing machine.

Participatated in Techfest 2012 IIT Bombay in Cricbot Event to make an autonomous fielding
robot and Finished in TOP 8 of 40+ teams.

Participated in Inter-NIT Robotics 2011 in NIT Bhopal in maze solving robot competition.

Participated in Line-Follower Competition of Apogee BITS PILANI in 2011.

Skills
ROS, Gazebo, Matlab, C, C++, Java, Solidworks, Fabrication on CNC Machines writting G-CODES,
Microcontroller Programming (experience with ATMEL & TI MCUs)

Patents*

*In process of filing, have been granted support from college

Navigation System to assist blind people

Reconfigurable Robot

Butler Robot