Postdoctoral Research Fellow @ KU Center for Autonomous Robotic Systems (KUCARS)
Khalifa University, Abu Dhabi, UAE 🇦🇪

🤖 Robot Learning  ·  🧠 Task & Motion Planning  ·  🌊 Marine Robotics  ·  👁️ Robotic Vision

I work to bring robots out of the lab and make them capable of performing manipulation and navigation tasks robustly and intelligently — robots that don't hesitate to interact with the real world. My research bridges classical control and motion planning with modern learning-based methods.

• 🎓 Ph.D. in Automatic Control, Robotics & Computer Vision — Institute of Industrial and Control Engineering (IOC), Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), Barcelona, Spain
• 📜 Thesis: Physics-based Motion Planning for Grasping and Manipulation — knowledge-oriented physics-based planning among movable obstacles, grasping in clutter, and planning with temporal goals
• 🛰️ Former Project Manager for the MBZIRC Maritime Grand Challenge (heterogeneous USV + UAV + manipulator systems in GNSS-denied conditions)
• 🏢 Previously R&D Engineer at ITK System Engineering (BOSCH Group) — medical robotics, AR, and software testing
• 🌍 Visiting scholar at the Kavraki Lab (Rice University) and the Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics (DLR, German Aerospace Center)

• Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models for robot manipulation
• LLM / ontology-driven task and motion planning — refining prompts with knowledge-based reasoning for context-aware symbolic plans
• Autonomous marine navigation — environmental monitoring, maritime security, and port inspection
• Robotic perception — visual servoing, tracking, and underwater vision

Real-robot experience: ABB YuMi · KUKA-LWR · PAL TIAGo · UR5 / UR10 · Franka FR3 · Bravo5 underwater manipulator

"I don't have any comfort zone — I can quickly adapt to new tools for tackling challenging problems."