Guest Reseacher

E-Mail	somani@in.tum.de , nikhil.somani@tum-create.edu.sg
Homepage	http://www6.in.tum.de/Main/Somani

Curriculum Vitae

TUM CREATE, Singapore, since 2016
Staff researcher, fortiss - An-Institut der Technischen Universität München, 2013 - 2016
Ph.D. Candidate at Department of Informatics VI (Robotics and Embedded Systems), Technische Universität München, since 2013
M.Sc., Computer Science, Technische Universität München, 2013
B.Tech., Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur, 2011

Projects

SMErobotics

Software

Constraint Controller Library

Videos

Task Level Robot Programming Using Prioritized Non-Linear Inequality Constraints (IROS 2016)

How to Teach Your Robot in 5 Minutes (AUTOMATICA 2016)

Constraint-Based Task Programming with CAD Semantics (IROS 2015)

Teaching

Publications

[1]	Nikhil Somani, Markus Rickert, and Alois Knoll. An exact solver for geometric constraints with inequalities. IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 2(2):1148-1155, April 2017. accepted for presentation at ICRA 2017. [ DOI \| .bib \| .pdf ]
[2]	Suraj Nair, Nikhil Somani, Artur Grunau, Emmanuel Dean-Leon, and Alois Knoll. Image processing units on ultra-low-cost embedded hardware: Algorithmic optimizations for real-time performance. Journal of Signal Processing Systems, pages 1-17, 8 2017. [ DOI \| .bib ]
[3]	Nikhil Somani, Yaadhav Raaj, Suraj Nair, and Alois Knoll. Adapting the search subspace of a particle filter using geometric constraints. Technical Report TUM-I1762, 2017. [ .bib \| .pdf ]
[4]	Alexander Perzylo, Nikhil Somani, Stefan Profanter, Ingmar Kessler, Markus Rickert, and Alois Knoll. Intuitive instruction of industrial robots: Semantic process descriptions for small lot production. In Proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), pages 2293-2300, Daejeon, Republic of Korea, October 2016. [ DOI \| .bib \| .pdf ]
[5]	Nikhil Somani, Markus Rickert, Andre Gaschler, Caixia Cai, Alexander Perzylo, and Alois Knoll. Task level robot programming using prioritized non-linear inequality constraints. In IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Daejeon, Republic of Korea, October 2016. https://youtu.be/baet9IkTK04, https://github.com/nsomani/constraint-controller-library. [ DOI \| .bib \| .pdf ]
[6]	Mathias Haage, Stefan Profanter, Ingmar Kessler, Alexander Perzylo, Nikhil Somani, Olof Sörnmo, Martin Karlsson, Sven Gestegård Robertz, Klas Nilsson, Ludovic Resch, and Michael Marti. On cognitive robot woodworking in SMErobotics. In International Symposium on Robotics (ISR), Munich, Germany, June 2016. [ .bib \| .pdf ]
[7]	Caixia Cai, Nikhil Somani, and Alois Knoll. Orthogonal Image Features for Visual Servoing of a 6-DOF Manipulator with Uncalibrated Stereo Cameras. IEEE transactions on Robotics, April 2016. [ DOI \| .bib \| .pdf ]
[8]	Nikhil Somani, Alexander Perzylo, Caixia Cai, Markus Rickert, and Alois Knoll. Object detection using boundary representations of primitive shapes. In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics (ROBIO), Zhuhai, China, December 2015. [ DOI \| .bib \| .pdf ]
[9]	Caixia Cai, Nikhil Somani, Markus Rickert, and Alois Knoll. Prioritized Motion-Force Control of Multi-Constraints for Industrial Manipulators. In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics (ROBIO), Zhuhai, China, December 2015. [ DOI \| .bib \| .pdf ]
[10]	Alexander Perzylo, Nikhil Somani, Stefan Profanter, Andre Gaschler, Sascha Griffiths, Markus Rickert, and Alois Knoll. Ubiquitous semantics: Representing and exploiting knowledge, geometry, and language for cognitive robot systems. In Proceedings of the Workshop Towards Intelligent Social Robots - Current Advances in Cognitive Robotics, IEEE/RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots (HUMANOIDS), Seoul, South Korea, November 2015. [ .bib \| .pdf ]
[11]	Alina Roitberg, Nikhil Somani, Alexander Perzylo, Markus Rickert, and Alois Knoll. Multimodal human activity recognition for industrial manufacturing processes in robotic workcells. In ACM International Conference on Multimodal Interaction (ICMI), Seattle, USA, November 2015. https://youtu.be/ggb6nUOEcjE. [ .bib \| .pdf ]
[12]	Stefan Profanter, Alexander Perzylo, Nikhil Somani, Markus Rickert, and Alois Knoll. Analysis and semantic modeling of modality preferences in industrial human-robot interaction. In Proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Hamburg, Germany, September 2015. [ DOI \| .bib \| .pdf ]
[13]	Alexander Perzylo, Nikhil Somani, Markus Rickert, and Alois Knoll. An ontology for CAD data and geometric constraints as a link between product models and semantic robot task descriptions. In Proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), pages 4197-4203, Hamburg, Germany, September 2015. [ DOI \| .bib \| .pdf ]
[14]	Alexander Perzylo, Nikhil Somani, Stefan Profanter, Markus Rickert, and Alois Knoll. Multimodal binding of parameters for task-based robot programming based on semantic descriptions of modalities and parameter types. In IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Workshop on Multimodal Semantics for Robotic Systems, Hamburg, Germany, September 2015. [ .bib \| .pdf ]
[15]	Nikhil Somani, Andre Gaschler, Markus Rickert, Alexander Perzylo, and Alois Knoll. Constraint-based task programming with CAD semantics: From intuitive specification to real-time control. In Proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Hamburg, Germany, September 2015. https://youtu.be/qRJ1JmNoFEw. [ DOI \| .bib \| .pdf ]
[16]	Alexander Perzylo, Nikhil Somani, Stefan Profanter, Markus Rickert, and Alois Knoll. Toward efficient robot teach-in and semantic process descriptions for small lot sizes. In Proceedings of the Workshop on Combining AI Reasoning and Cognitive Science with Robotics, Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS), Rome, Italy, July 2015. [ .bib \| .pdf ]
[17]	Alina Roitberg, Alexander Perzylo, Nikhil Somani, Manuel Giuliani, Markus Rickert, and Alois Knoll. Human activity recognition in the context of industrial human-robot interaction. In Proceedings of the AsiaPacific Signal and Information Processing Association Annual Summit and Conference (APSIPA ASC), pages 1-10, Siem Reap, Cambodia, December 2014. [ DOI \| .bib \| .pdf ]
[18]	Nikhil Somani, Caixia Cai, Alexander Perzylo, Markus Rickert, and Alois Knoll. Object recognition using constraints from primitive shape matching. In Proceedings of the International Symposium on Visual Computing (ISVC), pages 783-792. Springer, December 2014. [ DOI \| .bib \| .pdf ]
[19]	Caixia Cai, Emmanuel Dean-Leon, Nikhil Somani, and Alois Knoll. 6D Image-based Visual Servoing for Robot Manipulators with Uncalibrated Stereo Cameras. In IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Sep. 2014. [ DOI \| .bib \| .pdf ]
[20]	Caixia Cai, Nikhil Somani, Suraj Nair, Dario Mendoza, and Alois Knoll. Uncalibrated Stereo Visual Servoing for Manipulators using Virtual Impedance Control. In the 13th International Conference on Control, Automation, Robotics and Vision (ICARCV 2014), Dec. 2014. [ DOI \| .bib \| .pdf ]
[21]	Caixia Cai, Emmanuel Dean-Leon, Dario Mendoza, Nikhil Somani, and Alois Knoll. Uncalibrated 3D Stereo Image-based Dynamic Visual Servoing for Robot Manipulators. In IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), November 2013. [ DOI \| .bib \| .pdf ]
[22]	Caixia Cai, Emmanuel Dean-Leon, Nikhil Somani, and Alois Knoll. 3D Image-based Dynamic Visual Servoing with Uncalibrated Stereo Cameras. In The 44th Internation Symposium on Robotics (ISR), October 2013. [ DOI \| .bib \| .pdf ]
[23]	Nikhil Somani, Emmanuel Dean-Leon, Caixia Cai, and Alois Knoll. Scene Perception and Recognition for Human-Robot Co-Operation. In ICIAP'13 workshop: First International Workshop on Assistive Computer Vision and Robotics (ACVR 2013). The 17th International Conference on Image Analysis and Processing., September 2013. [ .bib \| .pdf ]
[24]	Nikhil Somani, Emmanuel Dean-Leon, Caixia Cai, and Alois Knoll. Perception and Reasoning for Scene Understanding in Human-Robot Interaction Scenarios. In CAIP'13 workshop: Recognition and Action for Scene understanding (REACTS 2013). The 15th International Conference of Computer Analysis of Images and Patterns., August 2013. [ .bib \| .pdf ]
[25]	Nikhil Somani, Emmanuel Dean-Leon, Caixia Cai, and Alois Knoll. Scene Perception and Recognition in industrial environments for Human-Robot Interaction. In 9th International Symposium on Visual Computing (ISVC'13). Springer, July 2013. [ DOI \| .bib \| .pdf ]

Nikhil Somani