Girish Krishnan

For More Information

• Monolithic Systems Lab

Education

• Bachelors of Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, R. V. College of Engineering, Bangalore, India, June 2004
• Masters of Science (Engineering), Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India, December 2006
• Doctor of Philosophy, Mechanical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, United States of America, April 2011

Other Professional Activities

• Associate Editor, IEEE Robotics and Automations Letter, 2020- present
• Associate Editor, ASME Journal of Mechanical Design, 2021-present

Professional Highlights

• 2016 Engineering Council Award for Excellence in Advising.
• List of Teachers ranked Excellent by their students in Fall 2015
• NSF CAREER Award 2015
• Freudenstein Young Investigator award from ASME in 2017

Resident Instruction

• SE 598 Introduction to Soft Robotics, Fall '17, Fall '19
• GE/SE 411 Introduction to Reliability Engineering, Fall '14, Spring '16, '17, '19, '21
• GE/SE 310 General Engineering Design/ Design of Structures and Mechanisms, Spring '14, '15, Fall '18, Fall '20, Fall '21
• GE/SE 598 Compliant Mechanism Design, Fall '13, '15, Spring 18
• GE/SE 100 Introduction of Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering, Fall '15, '16, '17, '18, '19, '20, '21

Design Teams

• Advised a senior design project team, Fall 2014, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018

Research Interests

• MEMS Sensors
• Adaptive Structures
• Active Wearable Prosthetic and Orthotic Devices
• Flexible Pneumatic and Hydraulic Actuators
• Soft Robots
• Design of Compliant Systems

Chapters in Books

• C. Kim and G. Krishnan, "Synthesis Through the use of Building Blocks," Handbook of Compliant Mechanisms, Wiley, March 2013.
• Marry, C., Dankowicz, H., & Krishnan, G. (2022). Continuation-Based Design of Self-Contacting Soft Robotic Manipulators. In G. Lacarbonara, W., Balachandran, B., Leamy, M.J., Ma, J., Tenreiro Machado, J.A., Stepan (Ed.), Advances in Nonlinear Dynamics. NODYCON Conference Proceedings Series (pp. 341–350).

Selected Articles in Journals

• S. Satheeshbabu and G. Krishnan, “Qualitative Mobility Analysis of Wire Flexure Systems Using Load Flow Visualization,” ASME Journal of Mechanisms and Robotics, vol. 8, no. 6, p. 061012, Sep. 2016.
• S. K. Patiballa and G. Krishnan, “Estimating Optimized Stress Bounds in Early Stage Design of Compliant Mechanisms,” ASME Journal of Mechanical Design, vol. 139, no. 6, p. 62302, Apr. 2017.
• G. Singh and G. Krishnan, “A constrained maximization formulation to analyze deformation of fiber reinforced elastomeric actuators,” Smart Materials and Structures, vol. 26, no. 6, p. 065024, Jun. 2017.
• X. Zhang and G. Krishnan, “A nested pneumatic muscle arrangement for amplified stroke and force behavior,” Journal of Intelligent Material Systems and Structures, vol. 29, no. 6, pp. 1139–1156, Apr. 2018.
• S. K. Patiballa and G. Krishnan, “Qualitative Analysis and Conceptual Design of Planar Metamaterials With Negative Poisson’s Ratio,” ASME Journal of Mechanisms and Robotics, vol. 10, no. 2, p. 021006, Feb. 2018.
• G. Singh, C. Xiao, E. T. Hsiao-Wecksler, and G. Krishnan, “Design and analysis of coiled fiber reinforced soft pneumatic actuator,” Bioinspiration and Biomimetics, vol. 13, no. 3, p. 036010, Apr. 2018.
• N. K. Uppalapati and G. Krishnan, “Towards Pneumatic Spiral Grippers: Modeling and Design Considerations,” Soft Robotics Journal, vol. 5, no. 6, pp. 695–709, Dec. 2018.
• S. Satheeshbabu and G. Krishnan, “Modeling the Bending Behavior of Fiber Reinforced Pneumatic Actuators Using a Pseudo Rigid Body Model,” ASME Journal of Mechanisms and Robotics, p. 1, Feb. 2019.
• G. Singh and G. Krishnan, "Designing Fiber-Reinforced Soft Actuators for Planar Curvilinear Shape Matching," Soft Robotics Journal, p. soro.2018.0169, Sep. 2019.
• G. Chowdhary, M. Gazzola, G. Krishnan, C. Soman, and S. Lovell, “Soft Robotics as an Enabling Technology for Agroforestry Practice and Research,” Sustainability, vol. 11, no. 23, p. 6751, Nov. 2019.
• G. Krishnan and S. K. Patiballa, “Conceptual Insightful Synthesis of Spatial Compliant Mechanisms Using the Load Flow Formulation,” J. Mech. Des., vol. 142, no. 5, May 2020.
• N. K. Uppalapati and G. Krishnan, “VaLeNS: Design of a Novel Variable Length Nested Soft Arm,” IEEE Robot. Autom. Lett., vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 1135–1142, Apr. 2020.
• S. K. Patiballa and G. Krishnan, “On the design of three-dimensional mechanical metamaterials using load flow visualization,” Mech. Based Des. Struct. Mach., pp. 1–26, Feb. 2020.
• Uppalapati, N. K., & Krishnan, G. (2021). Design and Modeling of Soft Continuum Manipulators Using Parallel Asymmetric Combination of Fiber-Reinforced Elastomers. Journal of Mechanisms and Robotics, 13(1).
• Kamtikar, S., Marri, S., Walt, B., Uppalapati, N. K., Krishnan, G., & Chowdhary, G. (2022). Visual Servoing for Pose Control of Soft Continuum Arm in a Structured Environment. IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 7(2), 5504–5511.
• Albeladi, A., Ripperger, E., Hutchinson, S., & Krishnan, G. (2022). Hybrid Eye-in-Hand/Eye-to-Hand Image Based Visual Servoing for Soft Continuum Arms. to appear in Robotics and Automation Letters, 2022

Articles in Conference Proceedings

• R. M. Reck and G. Krishnan, “Combining projects and informational sessions to create a comprehensive introduction to the department,” in 2016 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE), 2016, pp. 1–5.
• N. Thompson, X. Zhang, F. Ayala, E. T. Hsiao-Wecksler, and G. Krishnan, “Augmented Joint Stiffness and Actuation Using Architectures of Soft Pneumatic Actuators,” in 2018 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2018, pp. 1533–1538. Acceptance rate: 40%
• S. Patiballa, K. Uchikata, R. K. Ranganath, and G. Krishnan, “A Conceptual Design Tool for Synthesis of Spatial Compliant and Shape Morphing Mechanisms,” in Volume 5B: 42nd Mechanisms and Robotics Conference, ASME-IDETC 2018, p. V05BT07A009.
• S. Satheeshbabu, N. Thompson, C. Xiao, and G. Krishnan, “Architectures of Soft Pneumatic Actuators Inspired by Muscle Fiber Arrangements,” in 2019 2nd IEEE International Conference on Soft Robotics (RoboSoft), 2019, pp. 271–276.
• N. Thompson, A. Sinha, G. Krishnan, "Characterizing Architectures of Soft Pneumatic Actuators for a Cable-Driven Shoulder Exoskeleton," in proceedings of 2019 IEEE Conference of Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Montreal, CA, May 20-24. Acceptance rate: 40%
• G. Singh, S. Patiballa, X. Zhang, G. Krishnan, "A Pipe-Climbing Soft Robot," in proceedings of 2019 IEEE Conference of Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Montreal, CA, May 20-24. Acceptance rate: 40%
• S. Satheeshbabu, N. Uppalapati, G. Chowdhary, and G. Krishnan, "Open Loop Position Control of Soft Continuum Arm Using Deep Reinforcement Learning," in proceedings of 2019 IEEE Conference of Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Montreal, CA, May 20-24. Acceptance rate: 40%
• S. K. Patiballa, S. Satheeshbabu, and G. Krishnan, “Load-Flow Based Design of Compliant Mechanisms With Embedded Soft Actuators,” in Volume 5A: 43rd Mechanisms and Robotics Conference, ASME IDETC 2019. pV05AT07A020
• S. Satheeshbabu, & G. Krishnan, "Analysis of Soft Mechanisms Using a Homogenized Strain Induced Model", in Proceedings of the 2020 USCToMM Symposium on Mechanical Systems and Robotics. USCToMM MSR 2020. Mechanisms and Machine Science, vol 83. Springer, Cham (pp. 179–195)
• Satheeshbabu, S., Uppalapati, N. K., Fu, T., & Krishnan, G. (2020). Continuous Control of a Soft Continuum Arm using Deep Reinforcement Learning. In 2020 3rd IEEE International Conference on Soft Robotics (RoboSoft) (pp. 497–503). IEEE.
• Kumar Uppalapati, N., Walt, B., Havens, A., Mahdian, A., Chowdhary, G., & Krishnan, G. (2020). A Berry Picking Robot With A Hybrid Soft-Rigid Arm: Design and Task Space Control. In Robotics: Science and Systems XVI. Robotics: Science and Systems Foundation.
• Thompson, N. A., Kocheril, A. G., Hsiao-Wecksler, E. T., & Krishnan, G. (2021). A Soft Robotic Simulator for Transseptal Puncture Training. In 2021 Design of Medical Devices Conference. American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
• McDonagh, D., Arquines, K., Hsiao-Wecksler, E. T., Mansouri, M., Krishnan, G., Alabed, M., & Zallek, C. M. (2021). User Centered Approach to the Supra-Functional Needs of People Living with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). In 2021 Design of Medical Devices Conference. American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
• AlBeladi, A., Krishnan, G., Belabbas, M.-A., & Hutchinson, S. (2021). Vision-Based Shape Reconstruction of Soft Continuum Arms Using a Geometric Strain Parametrization. In 2021 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) (pp. 11753–11759). IEEE.
• Marry, C., Dankowicz, H., and Krishnan, G. (2021). Continuation-based design of self-contacting soft robotic manipulators, in proceedings of the 2021 Second International Nonlinear Dynamics Conference (Nondycon 2021), February 16-19, 2021
• Kim, S. H., Chang, H.-S., Shih, C.-H., Uppalapati, N. K., Halder, U., Krishnan, G., Mehta, P. G., & Gazzola, M. (2021). A physics-informed, vision-based method to reconstruct all deformation modes in slender bodies. In 2022 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)
• Mansouri, M., Krishnan, G., & Hsiao-Wecksler, E. T. (2022). Design Guidelines for Moving a Human Body on a Bed Using Traveling Waves. In 2022 Design of Medical Devices Conference. American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
• Edward, S., Mansouri, M., Hsiao-Wecksler, E. T., Krishnan, G., (2022).Experimental Characterization and Modeling of a Unit Soft Air Bladder. In 2022 ASME International Design Technical Engineering conference and Computers Information Engineering Conference, St. Louis, MO, August 17-19

Patents

• Bishop-Moser, J., Krishnan, G., & Kota, S. (2017). U.S. Patent No. 9,835,184. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
• Hsiao-Wecksler, E. T., Farooq, D., Xiao, C., Krishnan, G., Singh, G., & Oo, Y. L. (2017). U.S. Patent No. 9,662,263. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Magazine Articles

• Research work mentioned in Scientific American Article (May 2014) titled "Shape Shifting Things to Come'
• 2016 Fluid Power Magazine titled "New Twist in Pneumatic Muscles" featuring collaborative work with Prof. Elizabeth Hsiao-Wecksler

Honors

• 2nd Price, Student Mechanisms Design Contest. (2006)
• Best Technical Contribution (2008-2009)

Teaching Honors

• Engineering Council Outstanding Advisor Award (2016)
• List of Teachers ranked Excellent by their students in Fall 2015 (2015)
• Senior Design team awarded Gold by the Lincoln Arc Welding Association (2015)
• Senior Design team awarded Bronze by the Lincoln Arc Welding Association (2018)

Research Honors

• NSF Early Career Development Program Award (CAREER) (2015)
• Freudenstien Young Investigator Award (2017)

Recent Courses Taught

• SE 100 - Introduction to ISE
• SE 310 - Dsgn of Structures & Mechanism
• SE 411 - Reliability Engineering
• SE 598 - Soft Robotics