Dr. Md Jahidul Islam directs the RoboPI lab; he is an Assistant Professor at the ECE Department of the University of Florida. His research focuses on solving challenging open problems in the domains of Robotics and AIoT. In particular, he is interested in the design and development of robust perception modules that enable autonomous robots and intelligent machines to accurately interpret their surroundings in real-time.

Dr. Islam formed the RoboPI lab back in January 2022, with the primary research focus on developing novel and improved robotics systems for autonomous inspection, surveillance, and long-term monitoring applications to address and mitigate various challenging real-world problems. RoboPI also explores research problems in the domains of applied machine learning and 3D computer vision - aiming at multidisciplinary use cases of AI and AIoT. Checkout our research and publication pages for more details!


 EMAIL   |    Office  |    Github   |    Google Scholar   |    Twitter   |    LinkedIn



Current Students


Adnan Abdullah is a Ph.D. student at the dept of ECE, University of Florida. He completed his Bachelor of Science (BSc) from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology with a major in Electrical and Electronic Engineering. His research interest, primarily in the field of embedded deep learning and on-device vision. He is currently working on several projects focusing on audio-visual signal understanding and secure communication of mobile robots in adverse sensing conditions. He is also working on state estimation and localization of mobile robots in long-term exploratory missions.

 adnanabdullah@ufl.edu
 https://github.com/aduvai22
 https://www.linkedin.com/in/adnanabdullah9/
 https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=0vWxyQMAAAAJ&hl=en


David Blow is a Ph.D. student at the dept of ECE, University of Florida. He completed an B.Sc. and M.Sc. also from ECE, UF. His research focus involves sensorimotor controls and its application to underwater data center surveillance by mobile robots. He has done previous work developing a reliable and low-cost multi-axis drive configuration which can benefit many robotics applications. He is currently exploring supernumerary controls and human-robot sensorimotor interaction and embodied reasoning for field robotics applications.

 david.blow@ufl.edu


Abu Bakr Siddique is a Ph.D. student at the dept of ECE, University of Florida. He completed an M.Sc. in ECE from Michigan Technological University (2024), and B.Sc. in EEE from IUT, Bangladesh. Post graduation, Abu worked as a faculty member at IUBAT, Bangladesh. His research interest lies in the intersection of Machine Learning and Robotics. He is exploring 3D reconstruction and mapping of underwater scenes. He is also exploring the visual servoing and image-guided exploration by autonomous mobile robots.

 msiddique@ufl.edu
 https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=SzfoCVkAAAAJ&hl=en


Chen Ruo is a M.Sc. (Thesis) student at the dept of ECE, University of Florida. He completed his B.Sc. in Computer Engineering with an interest in embedded systems and electronic hardware. He has been a robogator member at the RoboPI laboratory since Fall 2022. His prior experience includes working with the Machine Intelligence Laboratory and the Generational Relief in Prosthetics club. He was also a team lead for the AeroGators design team. In the RoboPI lab, he focuses on designing efficient and deployable ROS modules to enable structured navigation patterns for low-cost autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). He is currently working on GPS-denied mission control and stealth recovery for AUVs, as well as on designing virtual teleoperation interfaces for ROVs.

 chenruo@ufl.edu
 linkedin.com/in/ruochenuf/
 github.com/OverlordFlowers


Vaishnav Ramesh is a Ph.D. student at ECE, UF. He holds a Bachelor of Technology in ECE from the College of Engineering Trivandrum, India. During his undergraduate years, he was involved with the Robotics and Automation Society of IEEE. After graduation, he worked as a SDE at IBS software. Now, he is pursuing his research interests in machine learning and robotics. He is currently working on low-light image perception, image quality assessment, and active robot vision at the RoboPi lab. He is also exploring novel telerobotics interfaces with human-in-the-lead interaction and task execution.

 vaishnavramesh@ufl.edu

Alankrit Gupta is a M.Sc. student at the MAE department, UF. His research interests lie in the field of controls and robotics. He has acquired his bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology Bhopal, India. He has also worked as a development engineer in R&D of an automobile organization Bajaj Auto Ltd. for four years after his undergraduate studies. At the RoboPi lab, he is working on developing biomimetic robotics motion planning and control algorithms for autonomous underwater exploration.

 gupta.alankrit@ufl.edu
 linkedin.com/in/alankrit-gupta-857204163/

Hai-Ning Wang is a graduate student at the dept of ECE, University of Florida. He received his M.Sc. (2023) from Shandong University and B.Sc. (2019) from Northeastern University. Earlier in his career, he worked on designing atomic magnetometer arrays in geomagnetic environments as well as developing triggerable, non-magnetic heating devices. He is currently working on image quality assessment and its application to low-light image enhancement problems. He is trying to design loss functions as evaluation metrics to achieve improved image-to-image translation in learning-based methods.

 haining.wang@ufl.edu
 https://github.com/wanghn0320


Junliang Li is a M.Sc. student at ECE, UF. He received his B.Eng. degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Edinburgh. His experience includes Machine Learning, Image processing, and Computer Vision. He used to work in the Nanomanufacturing Lab at University College Dublin. In RoboPi Lab, he is focusing on image enhancement and evaluation for autonomous underwater robotics applications.

 junliang.liu@ufl.edu

Emerson Schmidt is an undergraduate Computer Engineering student at ECE, UF. His interests include computer vision, hardware design, and embedded systems. Emerson's prior experience includes working with the UF IEEE hardware team, as well as serving several semesters as a teaching assistant for a programming class. He also possesses proficiency in utilizing COMSOL Multiphysics software for simulating neuronal behavior. He is currently working on developing new tools for efficient low-light robot vision and underwater imaging systems.

 schmidt.e1@ufl.edu


Undergraduate Research Team: GLIDE (S24)


From left: Ethan Shover, Lauren Proctor, and Stevie Galluscio graduated from the CISE department at UF (Spring 2024). At the RoboPI lab, they worked on their senior project as a team named GLIDE: Guided Locomotion for Imaging & Deep Exploration. This capstone project focuses on developing low-cost underwater gliders targetting autonomous missions. The goal is to make this glider capable of depth regulation, surface communication, and take sensory readings. They will deploy their glider on underwater sinkholes across Florida for data collection and surveying.

 Ethan   |    Lauren   |    Stevie  


Undergraduate Research Team: SkyMap (F23)


From left: Steven Phang and Veronica Soden graduated from the ECE department at UF (Fall 2023). They completed their senior project on SkyMap: Point Cloud Reconstruction from Monoscopic Aerial Photography, which interfaced a monoscopic camera mounted on an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) to generate 3D point cloud reconstructions of environmental features. They explored the effectiveness of this technique in creating informative models that can represent changes over time, particularly in challenging environments such as aquatic habitats that are difficult to monitor through traditional means.

 Steven   |    Veronica  


Graduated, but not forgotten!


Jiayi Wu graduated with M.Sc. (Thesis) degree from the dept of ECE, University of Florida. He was one of the inception members of the RoboPI lab. His M.Sc. Thesis was on low-cost 3D reconstruction and depth estimation in scattering medium. He was involved in several projects, co-authoring multiple papers. He authored the SDU-SfM paper in the IEEE CAI 2023 (oral), and co-authored the UDepth paper in ICRA 2023. From Fall 2023, he will start his Ph.D. studies at the dept of Computer Science, University of Maryland, College Park.

 EMAIL   |    Webpage   |    Github   |    Twitter   |    LinkedIn


Mehron Talebi was an undergraduate Computer Engineering student at ECE, UF. He focused on designing and developing comprehensive computing systems in various areas, such as real-time remote sensing, embedded systems, and autonomous cross-domain robotic systems. Mehron's experience spans from circuit-level hardware to user-level software, enabling him to build vertically-integrated projects. One such example is a custom-built real-time wireless mesh sensing platform that incorporates a web-based user interface. Mehron worked on a TI project focusing on re-structuring our Microprocessor Applications 2 course. He also led the BlueME project for enabling real-time robot-to-robot communication.

 mtalebi@ufl.edu

Xianyao Li is a M.Sc. student at ECE, UF. He has received his Bachelor of Engineering (B.Eng.) degree with a major in Automation. His research interests are mainly focused on embedded systems and robotics. During his undergraduate studies, he has participated in the national undergraduate innovation training program on UAV vision and the robotics intelligent manufacturing program. He is currently working on visual servoing and control of underwater robots in low-light conditions.

 xianyao.li@ufl.edu

Sheng-En Huang was a M.Sc. student at the dept of ECE, University of Florida. He received his M.Sc. and B.Sc. degrees from National Chiao Tung University (NCTU) and National Taiwan Ocean University (NTOU), respectively. His research included control engineering and robot vision. His experience subsumes guidance and control of autonomous surface vehicles, panoramic camera SLAM with monocular vision, and on-the-move tracking algorithm.

 huang.sh@ufl.edu
 https://github.com/ShengrenHuang


Steven Phang graduated with B.Sc. degree with Computer Engineering (CE) major from the dept of ECE, University of Florida. He worked in his B.Sc. honors thesis at the RoboPI lab on the topic "Skymap: Point Cloud Reconstruction from Monoscopic Aerial Photography" (same team as Veronica Soden). Post graduation, he will join Apple Inc. as a Software Engineer in the Wireless Tech and Ecosystems organization.

 sphang@ufl.edu
  linkedin.com/in/steven-phang-a165b3192/


Veronica Soden graduated with B.Sc. degree with Computer Engineering (CE) major from the dept of ECE, University of Florida. She worked in her B.Sc. honors thesis at the RoboPI lab on the topic "Skymap: Point Cloud Reconstruction from Monoscopic Aerial Photography" (same team as Steven Phang). She will start her career as a Software Engineer in Amazon Robotics.

 veronicasoden@ufl.edu
  linkedin.com/in/veronicasoden