Siavash Farzan, PhD

SIAVASH FARZAN

Research Team

Principal Investigator

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 with me at Cal Poly or WPI, feel free to contact me at sfarzan@calpoly.edu.

Research Scientists

Vishrut Bohara (vbohara@)
Postgraduate Associate, Cal Poly, 2024 - Present

Research interests: safety-critical control, autonomous vehicles, unmanned aerial vehicles

Current Students

	Varun Gampa (vgampa@) Graduate Student, WPI, 2023 - Present Research interests: learning-based control, model predective control
	Chinmayee Prabhakar (cprabhakar@) Graduate Student, WPI, 2023 - Present Research interests: learning-based coordinated control, unmanned aerial vehicles
	Sumeet Shanbhag (sshanbhag1@) Graduate Student, WPI, 2023 - Present Research interests: motion planning, autonomous vehicles, sim2real transfer
	Chaitanya Gaddipati (cgaddipati@) Graduate Student, WPI, 2023 - Present Research interests: control of PDE systems, robust/adaptive control
	Akshay Jaitly (ajaitly@) Graduate Student, WPI, 2023 - Present Research interests: action and motion planning
	Swati Shirke (svshirke@) Graduate Student, WPI, 2024 - Present Research interests: safety-critical planning and control
Past Students
	Vishrut Bohara (vbohara@) Graduate Student, WPI, 2023 (now at Nokia Bell Labs) Thesis title: Estimation-based Safety-Critical Control of Multi-Agent Robotic Systems
	Shiva Tekumatla (stekumatla@) Graduate Student, WPI, 2021-22 (now at Honeywell) Research interests: underactuated robotics, controls, learning-based control
	Ghokulji Selvaraj (gselvaraj@) Graduate Student, WPI, 2021-22 Research interests: robotic vision, deep learning, agricultural robotics
	Wael Mohammed (wmohammed@) Graduate Student, WPI, 2022 (now at Berkshire Grey) Research interests: vision-based robotic manipulation
	Yichen Guo (yguo2@) Undergraduate Student, WPI, 2022 (now at Cornell) Research interests: robust control, ROS-based mobile robots
	Tian Yu (Annie) Fan (tfan@) Graduate Student, WPI, 2022 (now at MathWorks) Research interests: robot manipulation and control
	Khizar Amjed Mohamed (kamjedmohamed@) Graduate Student, WPI, 2022 (now at Boardwalk Robotics) Research interests: learning-based control, underactuated robots
	Jidnyesha Patil (jpatil@) Graduate Student, WPI, 2022 (now at Smartapp) Research interests: motion planning and control, autonomous vehicles
	Aditya Patil (apatil@) Graduate Student, WPI, 2022 (now at ArcBest) Research interests: robust adaptive control, quadrotor aerial vehicles
	Rohith Venkataramanan (rvenkataramanan@) Graduate Student, WPI, 2022-23 (now at UltraFlex) Thesis title: Perception-Driven Robotic Manipulation and Motion Planning for Packaging of Dynamic Compressible Objects
	Harin Vashi (hvashi@) Graduate Student, WPI, 2022-23 (now at Outrider) Research interests: motion planning, multi-agent systems
	Harshal Bhat (hbhat@) Graduate Student, WPI, 2023 Research interests: distributed probabilistic filtering, multi-agent systems

LAEP Undergraduate Student Researchers

The Road Ahead: Pioneering Control and Planning for Self-Driving Cars

Wesley Luu, Nayeli Mateo, Dylan Sandall, Wilson Szeto, Alfred Tran
Undergraduate Students, Cal Poly, Winter 2024 - Spring 2024

Areas: self-driving cars, control, state estimation, sensor fusion

Senior Capstone Design Teams

	Drone Swarms for Search and Rescue Missions Anderson MacMillan, Wyatt Colburn, Rushabh Shah, Chris Short Undergraduate Students, Cal Poly, Fall 2023 - Spring 2024 Areas: localization, control, embedded systems
	Autonomous Apple Harvesting Robot Jack Cline, Tyus Green, Devon Woolston Undergraduate Students, Cal Poly, Fall 2023 - Spring 2024 Areas: manipulation, grasping, navigation
	Cal Poly Gen 2 Battle Bot Kelvin Villago Undergraduate Student, Cal Poly, Fall 2023 - Spring 2024 Areas: embedded systems, PCB design
	Stair-Capable Robot Vacuum Benjamin Draper and Sawyer Wofford (co-advised with Jing Xiao) Undergraduate Students, WPI, Fall 2021 - Spring 2022 Areas: novel robotic mechanism design, feedback control, embedded systems "Winner of the 2022 Provost's MQP Award for Robotics Engineering"
	A Hopping Two-Wheeled Segway Robot Christian Defranco, Brian Desousa, and Samuel Mwangi Undergraduate Students, WPI, Fall 2021 - Spring 2022 Areas: novel robotic mechanism design, feedback control, ROS-enabled embedded systems
	Small-Size Soccer Robots Spencer Belleville, Conner Christinsen, Ashley Espeland, David Lapointe, Noah Page, Logan Rinaldi, Nathan Rogers, Benjamin Schwantes, Evan Vadeboncoeur, Yifei Zhao Undergraduate Students, WPI, Fall 2022 - Spring 2023 Areas: multi-agent systems, motion planning, embeeded systems, mechatronics
	Robotic CNC Tending Work Cell with Remote Access Brian Francis, Mayank Govilla, Nikolas Neathery Undergraduate Students, WPI, Fall 2022 - Spring 2023 Areas: robotic manipulation, system integration, motion planning