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About

Kruthika Gangaraju is a robotics researcher whose work sits at the intersection of multimodal perception, snake-like locomotion, and loco-manipulation. Her research addresses fundamental challenges in how robots perceive and interact with complex, dynamic environments—from integrating vision, language, and tactile data for human-robot interaction to enabling snake robots to manipulate objects while moving. Her 2025 survey on multimodal perception-driven decision-making (12 citations) provides a comprehensive framework for robots to understand and act in unstructured settings. She has made notable contributions to NASA’s BIG Idea competition, investigating how tumbling robots like Northeastern’s COBRA can navigate rough terrain, including a study on the force required to topple such systems (8 citations). Her work on non-impulsive contact-implicit planning for slithering robots (4 citations each) introduces a novel approach to loco-manipulation, where snake robots use their overactuated bodies to manipulate objects during locomotion—a capability with potential applications in search-and-rescue and planetary exploration. Gangaraju’s research is shaping the next generation of robots that can move, perceive, and manipulate in ways previously thought impossible.