Siavash Farzan (sfarzan@)
Assistant Professor, Cal Poly

I lead a group of graduate and undergraduate students to develop safety-critical and robust planning and control algorithms for autonomous cyber-physical systems such as autonomous vahicles, aerial drones, and robot manipulators.

I'm consistently seeking ambitious graduate and undergraduate students interested in cyber-physical systems and robotics. If you're motivated by addressing fundamental challenges for autonomous systems and are considering theoretical/experimental research collaborations, feel free to contact me at sfarzan@calpoly.edu.

Cameron Wolff (crwolff@)
Graduate Student, Cal Poly, 2025 - 2026
Research interests: reinforcement learning, multi-agent systems, sim2real transfer

Anthony Man (amman@)
Graduate Student, Cal Poly, 2025 - 2026
Research interests: learning-based control

PROVE (provelab@)
Instructionally Related Activity (IRA), Cal Poly, Winter 2025 - Present
Cal Poly’s Prototype Vehicles Laboratory (PROVE Lab) is a student-run non-profit organization that strives to solve real-world issues by pushing the boundaries of engineering.

Summer Mariana Ortega
BEACoN Research Mentoring Program, Cal Poly, Winter 2025 - Spring 2025
Research project: Drive to Succeed: Paving the Way for Inclusive STEM Education with Autonomous Driving Technology

Wesley Luu, Nayeli Mateo, Dylan Sandall, Wilson Szeto, Alfred Tran
Learning Aligned Employment Program (LAEP), Cal Poly, Winter 2024 - Summer 2024
Research project: The Road Ahead: Pioneering Control and Planning for Self-Driving Cars

Amanda Chan
Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP), Cal Poly, Summer 2024
Research project: Drive to Succeed: Empowering Underserved Communities through Autonomous Driving Education

Chris Bae, Gabriel Basus
Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP), Cal Poly, Summer 2024
Research project: Advanced Localization and Grasping Sensor Technologies for Autonomous Robotic Apple Harvesting

Dmitri Dobrynin, Indigo Garcia
Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP), Cal Poly, Summer 2024
Research project: Collective Localization and Dynamic Formation Control for Robot Swarms

Toma Grundler, Jack Ryan
Senior Capstone Design, Cal Poly, Fall 2024 - Spring 2025
Senior project: Mesh-Networked UAV Swarm: Experimental Leader–Follower Formation Control

Minwoo Park, Niko Tambornini
Senior Capstone Design, Cal Poly, Fall 2024 - Spring 2025
Senior project: Framework for Multi-Agent Coordination and Distributed Localization in Micro-UAVs

Dmitri Dobrynin, Indigo Garcia
Senior Capstone Design, Cal Poly, Fall 2024 - Spring 2025
Senior project: A TurtleBot3 Hardware Testbed for Distributed Kalman Filter Localization

Patrick Crandall, Kalon Bienz
Senior Capstone Design, Cal Poly, Fall 2024 - Spring 2025
Senior project: Leader–Follower Platooning with Turtlebot3: A Low-Cost ROS Test-Bed Using Vision-LiDAR Fusion

Gabriel Basus, Andrew Daouda, Antonio Bowen
Senior Capstone Design, Cal Poly, Fall 2024 - Spring 2025
Senior project: Field Deployable Mobile Manipulator for Autonomous Apple Harvesting

Bennett Parisi
Senior Capstone Design, Cal Poly, Fall 2024 - Spring 2025
Senior project: Development of an Autonomous Driving Education Kit using NVIDIA Jetbots

Anthony Mann
Senior Capstone Design, Cal Poly, Winter 2025 - Spring 2025
Senior project: Gaussian Process-Based Learning for Model Predictive Control of Mobile Robots

Anderson MacMillan, Wyatt Colburn, Rushabh Shah, Chris Short
Senior Capstone Design, Cal Poly, Fall 2023 - Spring 2024
Senior project: Drone Swarms for Search and Rescue Missions

Jack Cline, Tyus Green, Devon Woolston
Senior Capstone Design, Cal Poly, Fall 2023 - Spring 2024
Senior project: Autonomous Apple Harvesting Robot

Kelvin Villago
Senior Capstone Design, Cal Poly, Fall 2023 - Spring 2024
Senior project: Cal Poly Combat Robot, Electrical System

Brian Francis, Mayank Govilla, Nikolas Neathery
Senior Capstone Design, WPI, Fall 2022 - Spring 2023
Senior project: Robotic CNC Tending Work Cell with Remote Access

Spencer Belleville, Conner Christinsen, Ashley Espeland, David Lapointe, Noah Page, Logan Rinaldi, Nathan Rogers, Benjamin Schwantes, Evan Vadeboncoeur, Yifei Zhao
Senior Capstone Design, WPI, Fall 2022 - Spring 2023
Senior project: Small-Size Soccer Robots

Benjamin Draper and Sawyer Wofford (co-advised with Jing Xiao)
Senior Capstone Design, WPI, Fall 2021 - Spring 2022
Senior project: Stair-Capable Robot Vacuum

"Winner of the 2022 Provost's MQP Award for Robotics Engineering"

Christian Defranco, Brian Desousa, and Samuel Mwangi
Senior Capstone Design, WPI, Fall 2021 - Spring 2022
Senior project: A Hopping Two-Wheeled Segway Robot

Jack Cline, Graduate Student, Cal Poly, 2024-25
Thesis: Fault Tolerant Dynamic Task Allocation for Heterogeneous Multi-Robot Systems

Kelvin Villago, Graduate Student, Cal Poly, 2024-25
Thesis: Distributed Formation Control of Nonholonomic Mobile Robots: Safety-Critical Leader-Follower Approach with Obstacle Avoidance and Dynamic Reconfiguration

Chinmayee Prabhakar, Graduate Student, WPI, 2023-24 (now at SpadXTech)
Thesis: A Unified Framework for Multi-Agent Collective Localization and Target Tracking

Akshay Jaitly, Graduate Student, WPI, 2023-24 (now at Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs)
Thesis: Polytopic Action-Set and Motion Planning with Learned Polytopic Representations of Behaviors

Vishrut Bohara, Graduate Student, WPI, 2023 (now at Nokia Bell Labs)
Thesis: Estimation-based Safety-Critical Control of Multi-Agent Robotic Systems

Rohith Venkataramanan, Graduate Student, WPI, 2022-23 (now at UltraFlex)
Thesis: Perception-Driven Robotic Manipulation and Motion Planning for Packaging of Dynamic Compressible Objects

Chaitanya Gaddipati, Graduate Student, WPI, 2023-24
Research interests: control of PDE systems, robust/adaptive control

Varun Gampa, Graduate Student, WPI, 2023-24 (now at ArcBest)
Research interests: learning-based control, model predective control

Harin Vashi, Graduate Student, WPI, 2022-23 (now at Outrider)
Research interests: motion planning, multi-agent systems

Shiva Tekumatla, Graduate Student, WPI, 2021-22 (now at Honeywell)
Research interests: underactuated robotics, controls, learning-based control

Ghokulji Selvaraj, Graduate Student, WPI, 2021-22 (now at Magna International)
Research interests: robotic vision, deep learning, agricultural robotics

Sumeet Shanbhag, Graduate Student, WPI, 2023-24
Research interests: motion planning, autonomous vehicles, sim2real transfer