CONTACT:
Research Scientist
Center for Advanced Manufacturing (CAM)
Viterbi School of Engineering
University of Southern California
LA, CA-90007, USA

Email: brualsha at usc dot edu
Phone: +1-213-280-7265

I’m a currently working as a research scientist at Viterbi School of Engineering, University of Southern California (USC) with Prof. S.K. Gupta. My research interests include motion and path planning, manipulator planning, marine robotics, machine learning, and AI planning…read more.

SUMMARY:

I am a roboticist passionate about working on developing algorithms for realizing operations of robots in our daily life. Since 2012, I have been developing algorithms in the areas of motion and path planning, optimization, and machine learning. During my Ph.D., I have developed trajectory and path planners for unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) or unmanned boats that enable them to operate in environments of varying sizes and complexities. During my full-time employment at USC,  I expanded my knowledge of decision-making algorithms and started implementing new algorithms for manipulator robots to enable advanced manufacturing applications. The algorithms I have developed are currently being used by robotic finishing (sanding, deburring, polishing, etc.), robotic 3D printing, robotic composite prepreg sheet layup, and assembly. Until date, I have published 5 journal articles, 19 conference papers, and 3 patents. Find a complete list of publication at https://brual.info/publications/

Apart from academic research, I have been working with industry partners like Lockheed Martin, United Technologies Research Center (UTRC), Boeing, and Indiana Technology and Manufacturing Companies (ITAMCO) in adapting the developed algorithms and testing it on the business cases for robotic finishing, and composite layup applications. These projects are focussed on TRL5 -TRL7 level development. 

I was part of the USC team that participated in the KUKA Innovation Award competition in 2017, where our team was one of the top five finalists and only team from the USA. As a part of this competition, we presented robotic finishing application in Hannover Messe trade fair in Germany. I also participated in Agile Robotics for Industrial Automation Competition (ARIAC) organized by NIST in 2017 where our team was ranked first out of 50 teams. In this competition, we developed a kitting algorithm to efficiently assemble kits after the order is received and deliver them upon completion.