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Sankalp Yamsani

PhD Student at UIUC
I'm an Electrical and Computer Engineering PhD student in KIMLAB (Kinetic Inteligent Machine LAB) advised by Professor Joohyung Kim at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign. Previously, I've had the opportunity to intern at companies like Aurora Innovation and Amazon, where I worked on technology stacks from system debugging tools to backend infrastructure and data visualization platforms.

My research centers around building software for robotic systems, with a focus on creating modular, plug-and-play platforms. I'm especially interested in how these systems can work together—developing frameworks that enable multi-agent coordination and task planning across different types of robots. Ultimately, my goal is to build intelligent, flexible robotic teams that can adapt to a wide range of real-world tasks.

News

July, 2025
CHILD is released as open-source.
July, 2025
PAPRLE and PAPRAS are released as open-source.
March, 2025
We presented Ringbot and PAPRAS at the Amazon MARS conference hosted by Jeff Bezos
December, 2024
Presented our paper “Learning Tone: Towards Robotic Xylophone Mastery” at Humanoids23
December, 2023
Presented our paper “Exploring the Capabilities of a General-Purpose Robotic Arm in Chess Gameplay” at Humanoids23
August, 2023
Presented our paper “Orthrus: A Dual-Arm Quadrupedal Robot for Mobile Manipulation and Entertainment Applications” at RO-MAN23
Oct, 2023
We presented the Mobile Object Manipulator Operator (MOMO) during live demos at IROS23
April, 2023
We presented Snapbot and PAPRAS at UIUC Engineering Open House (EOH)
December, 2022
Awarded Harold L. Olesen Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching
May, 2022
Started my internship at Aurora
April, 2022
We presented Snapbot and PAPRAS at UIUC Engineering Open House (EOH)
January, 2022
Started gradschool in KIMLAB@UIUC, directed by Professor Joohyung Kim
December, 2021
Graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering (High Honors)

Selected Publications

  1. Profile Picture
    CHILD (Controller for Humanoid Imitation and Live Demonstration): a Whole-Body Humanoid Teleoperation System
    N. Myers*, O. Kwon*, S. Yamsani, and J. Kim
    Arxiv, 2025
    Video Link Webpage
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    PAPRLE (Plug-And-Play Robotic Limb Environment): A Modular Ecosystem for Robotic Limbs
    O. Kwon*, S. Yamsani*, N. Myers, S. Taylor, J. Hong, K. Park, A. Alspach, and J. Kim
    Arxiv, 2025
    Paper Link Video Link Webpage
  3. Profile Picture
    Low-cost and easy-to-build soft robotic skin for safe and contact-rich human-robot collaboration
    K. Park, K. Shin, S. Yamsani, K. Gim, and J. Kim
    In IEEE Transactions on Robotics (T-RO) published, 2024
    Paper Link Video Link
  4. Profile Picture
    Orthrus: A dual-arm quadrupedal robot for mobile manipulation and entertainment applications
    S. Yamsani*, S. Taylor*, K. Shin*, J. Hong, DC. Mathur, K. Gim, and J. Kim
    In 32nd IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN) published, 2023
    Paper Link Video Link
  5. Profile Picture
    What if a vacuum robot has an arm?
    K. Gim*, S. Yamsani*, K. Shin* and J. Kim*
    In 20th International Conference on Ubiquitious Robots (UR) published, 2023
    Paper Link Video Link