Three controllers, one contact.
Who learns in time?
A side-by-side race between adaptive interaction controllers on the same two-link arm.
Code to be released after peer review
NOW AT FOCAS LAB · IISc BANGALORE
Robots that
ROBOTICS · CONTROL · HUMAN–ROBOT INTERACTION
Robots that
interact.
Safely.
I’m Chayan, a researcher building control strategies for robots that share our world.
Research Associate at FOCAS Lab, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.
Ph.D., IIT Delhi · Prime Minister’s Research Fellow
COLLABORATION
Looking for the right
questions. And collaborators.
I’m always happy to talk about research collaborations in safe robotics, adaptive control, and physical human–robot interaction.
I’m interested in connecting rigorous control methods with experimental robotics, and in working with people who care about both. I’m also open to postdoctoral opportunities.
01 / RESEARCH
Five questions I keep
coming back to.
Contact changes everything. I build controllers that learn, estimate and plan while a robot is touching the world, and then I take them to hardware.
FIXED-TIME ADAPTATIONSCHEMATIC
Not eventually. By a deadline you can name in advance.
Whatever the robot starts out believing, its estimates of what it doesn’t know settle within a fixed horizon.
Fixed-time adaptation · parameter convergenceTHEMES
Adaptive control with fixed-time convergence
Funnel-based impedance
Output-feedback control
Dynamic observers
MPC for safe interaction
OPEN RESEARCH
From the paper
to the experiment.
The models and implementations behind my research directions. Code is released once the related papers clear review.
Three controllers, one contact.
Can compliance and planning
share one arm?
One direction yields to contact while the rest keeps planning ahead.
Code to be released after peer review02 / PUBLICATIONS
A few contributions
to the conversation.
Work on contraction theory, adaptive control, observers, and safe interaction. Also on Google Scholar ↗.
No publications match. Try another title, topic, or year.
Under double-blind review: three further manuscripts, at IEEE T-ASE, IEEE RA-L and ICRA.
Conferences, workshops and training
- 2024
CoDIT 2024 · Valletta, Malta
10th International Conference on Control, Decision and Information Technologies. Paper on safe human–robot interaction with switched model reference admittance control.
- 2024
IFAC ACODS 2024 · New Delhi
8th IFAC Conference on Advances in Control and Optimization of Dynamical Systems. Two papers: adaptive impedance control through contraction theory, and finite-time adaptive backstepping for quadrotors.
- 2022
Workshop on Healthcare Robotics and Drone Applications · IIT Mandi
- 2022
Industrial training: KUKA robot operation and programming · AKGEC Ghaziabad
Hands-on programming and operation of industrial KUKA manipulators.
03 / IN THE LAB
Control theory.
Meet the real robot.
Experiments on a Franka Research 3: what happens when theory meets hardware. Videos coming soon.
What if the target keeps moving?
What if something comes toward the robot?
04 / PLAY
Robot Academy.
Learn control by playing.
Eleven short levels, from pointing an arm to giving it a sense of touch. Win a level to unlock the next. No maths needed to play; it’s there if you want it.
What’s going on?
For engineers
YOUR SCORE0
·
HALL OF FAME · THIS BROWSER
ABOUT
A foundation in control.
A curiosity about people.
I work at the intersection of control theory, robotics, and physical human–robot interaction.
I completed my Ph.D. at IIT Delhi with Prof. Indra Narayan Kar (defended July 2026, awarded August 2026), on safe and compliant adaptive control for human–robot interaction: fixed-time parameter estimation, invariance-based safe admittance control, and observers that recover interaction forces without a force sensor.
Today I am a Research Associate at FOCAS Lab, Robert Bosch Centre for Cyber-Physical Systems, IISc Bangalore, led by Dr. Pushpak Jagtap. I work on model-free, funnel-based control and formal safety guarantees for robot manipulators, and I mentor a Ph.D. student and a research intern.
I like taking proofs all the way to hardware: Franka Research 3, Quanser rotary servo and 2-DOF helicopter platforms, with ROS 2, Python and MATLAB/Simulink.
- JUL 2026 — PRESENT
Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore
Research Associate · FOCAS Lab, Robert Bosch Centre for Cyber-Physical Systems
Host: Dr. Pushpak Jagtap · funnel-based control, safety guarantees for manipulators, formal methods · mentoring a Ph.D. student and an intern - 2020 — 2026
Indian Institute of Technology Delhi
Ph.D., Electrical Engineering (Control & Automation) · CGPA 9.40/10
Thesis: Safe and Compliant Adaptive Control Strategies for Human–Robot Interaction · Advisor: Prof. Indra Narayan Kar · Prime Minister’s Research Fellow - 2015 — 2019
IIEST Shibpur
B.Tech., Electrical Engineering · CGPA 8.32/10
Final-year project: Hilbert-transform fault detection with FPGA implementation · research internships at IIT (BHU) Varanasi and IIEST
Prime Minister’s Research Fellowship
India’s most competitive doctoral fellowship, awarded nationally by the Ministry of Education across all of science and engineering. It funded my full doctorate, hardware and conference travel.
Recommended with commendation
The highest outcome of the national PMRF review committee, given to a select fraction of fellows.
Inria Lille – Nord Europe
Robust fixed-time adaptive control with D. Efimov and R. Ushirobira.
MHRD teaching assistantships
For the MS(R) (2020) and Ph.D. (2021) at IIT Delhi. Selected as Graduate Engineer Trainee at Larsen & Toubro (2019), declined to pursue research.
Learning goes both ways.
Teaching at four institutions, mentoring, and taking science beyond the classroom.
2022 — 2025IIT Delhi
Laboratories and tutorials in basic electrical engineering, control engineering, nonlinear systems and robotics.
NIT Jalandhar
Taught discrete-time control theory and supervised the associated laboratory experiments.
DSEU, G. B. Pant campus
Classes and laboratories in basic electrical and electronics engineering.
Science for Rural India
Hands-on AC–DC and rectifier circuits with Class X–XII students, under the PMRF outreach programme.
BEYOND THE LAB
Somewhere I haven’t
modelled yet.
Hiking, travelling, and seeing familiar things from a different angle.
LET’S CONNECT
Good research starts
with a conversation.
I’m happy to talk about research
collaborations in robotics and control.