IDEAS Lab - Purdue

I am a Graduate Research Assistant at the IDEAS Lab, Purdue University, under the supervision of Professor Aniket Bera. My work focuses on developing advanced navigation algorithms for Eli Lilly’s warehouse robots, incorporating deep scene understanding and human behavior modeling to improve safety, efficiency, and collaboration in human-robot environments.

Note: Due to a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) with Eli Lilly, I am unable to share specific technical details of this project.

C++ Python CNN Deep Learning Behavioural Modelling Transformer Reinforcement Learning Navigation Design Pattern OpenCV
Quadruped Robot

Project Overview

Challenge

Warehouse automation robots are typically not designed to be collaborative. Their primary focus is on speed and efficiency, which means they often lack the ability to interpret or respond appropriately to human behavior. As a result, when these robots operate in shared spaces without awareness of human actions or intentions, the risk of accidents or even serious catastrophes increases significantly. This highlights the importance of developing systems that can balance performance with safety and adaptability in human-robot interactions.

Solution

To address this challenge, we are planning to implement a centralized supervisory system—a sort of “brain of the warehouse.” This system will be connected to every robot and has access of the data from each of them. Acting as an overarching intelligence layer, it will monitor operations in real time and intervene whenever conflicts arise. For instance, if the individual robots’ behavior trees fail to resolve a situation, the supervisory system will step in to evaluate the context and make the final decision. At present, I am in the data collection phase at Lilly’s warehouse, where we are gathering the necessary information to train the model. This data-driven approach will allow the supervisory system to not only manage conflicts but also learn and adapt over time, ultimately ensuring safer and more efficient collaboration between robots and humans in the warehouse environment.

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