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About

Arpit Rawankar is a robotics researcher whose work centers on autonomous navigation, agricultural robotics, and human-robot interaction. His most significant contributions lie in developing safe, smooth, and practical navigation systems for mobile robots operating in complex, real-world environments—particularly vineyards. His 2021 paper on autonomous and safe vineyard navigation (40 citations) introduces a smooth collision-avoidance algorithm tailored for uneven, semi-structured agricultural terrain, addressing a critical gap between indoor and field robotics. Rawankar also advanced multi-robot coordination with his work on smart access to distributed charging points (18 citations), and pioneered low-cost semantic monitoring systems for viticulture (16 citations), enabling farmers to automate labor-intensive tasks like pest detection and harvest timing. Beyond agriculture, he has contributed to indoor safety with transient virtual obstacles (2 citations) and to assistive technology through real-time computer vision monitoring for elderly care (9 citations). His Infused Tangential Curves (ITC) method (10 citations) provides a mathematically elegant solution for smooth 2D and 3D robot navigation, eliminating sharp turns that hinder field robots. With a growing citation record and applications spanning precision agriculture, service robotics, and eldercare, Rawankar’s work exemplifies how robust navigation algorithms can bridge the gap between laboratory prototypes and deployable, real-world robotic systems.