Sharmita Dey

Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Papers

4

Total Citations

27

H-Index

3

About

Sharmita Dey is a robotics researcher specializing in autonomous navigation, risk-aware planning, and robotic systems designed for extreme and unstructured environments. Her work sits at the intersection of probabilistic planning, terrain traversability assessment, and multi-robot autonomy — areas critical to advancing reliable robotic operation beyond controlled laboratory settings. Dey is perhaps best known for her contributions to the STEP (Stochastic Traversability Evaluation and Planning) framework, a risk-aware navigation system that enables robots to safely traverse challenging off-road terrains such as caves, rubble, and post-disaster sites. This work, developed in the context of the prestigious DARPA Subterranean Challenge, has garnered significant attention, accumulating nearly 20 citations across multiple publications. She also contributed to the NeBula autonomy architecture developed by Team CoSTAR, an ambitious multi-robot collaborative system designed to scale autonomous exploration to large, complex subterranean environments, cited 7 times since its 2024 publication. Her research directly addresses one of robotics' most pressing challenges: deploying autonomous systems in real-world, unpredictable conditions where human lives may depend on their reliability. This focus on safety-critical autonomy positions Dey as an emerging voice in field robotics and autonomous systems research.

Research Focus

Key Achievements

3
H-Index
4
Papers
27
Total Citations
7
Avg Citations/Paper
🏆 Most Cited Paper
STEP: Stochastic Traversability Evaluation and Planning for Risk-Aware Navigation; Results From the DARPA Subterranean Challenge
10 citations · 2024
📈 Most Prolific Year: 2024 (3 Papers)
🤝 Key Collaborators: 91
🏛 Institutions: Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Top Papers

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Key Collaborators

Contact & Links

Available for collaboration
Content generated · 14 days ago