Girish Krishnan

For More Information

• Monolithic Systems Lab

Education

• Bachelors of Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, R. V. College of Engineering, Bangalore, India, June 2004
• Masters of Science (Engineering), Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India, December 2006
• Doctor of Philosophy, Mechanical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, United States of America, April 2011

Other Professional Activities

• Associate Editor, IEEE Robotics and Automations Letter, 2020- present
• Associate Editor, ASME Journal of Mechanical Design, 2021-present

Professional Highlights

• 2016 Engineering Council Award for Excellence in Advising.
• List of Teachers ranked Excellent by their students in Fall 2015
• NSF CAREER Award 2015
• Freudenstein Young Investigator award from ASME in 2017

Resident Instruction

• SE 598 Introduction to Soft Robotics, Fall '17, Fall '19
• GE/SE 411 Introduction to Reliability Engineering, Fall '14, Spring '16, '17, '19, '21,'23,'25
• GE/SE 310 General Engineering Design/ Design of Structures and Mechanisms, Spring '14, '15, Fall '18, Fall '20, Fall '21, Fall '22, Fall '23, Fall '24, Fall '25
• GE/SE 598 Compliant Mechanism Design, Fall '13, '15, Spring 18, Spring 24
• GE/SE 100 Introduction of Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering, Fall '15, '16, '17, '18, '19, '20, '21

Research Interests

• Adaptive Structures
• Active Wearable Prosthetic and Orthotic Devices
• Flexible Pneumatic and Hydraulic Actuators
• Agricultural robots
• Soft Robots

Research Topics

• Digital Manufacturing and Automation
• Health Technology
• Sustainability and Resilience

Chapters in Books

• C. Kim and G. Krishnan, "Synthesis Through the use of Building Blocks," Handbook of Compliant Mechanisms, Wiley, March 2013.
• Marry, C., Dankowicz, H., & Krishnan, G. (2022). Continuation-Based Design of Self-Contacting Soft Robotic Manipulators. In G. Lacarbonara, W., Balachandran, B., Leamy, M.J., Ma, J., Tenreiro Machado, J.A., Stepan (Ed.), Advances in Nonlinear Dynamics. NODYCON Conference Proceedings Series (pp. 341-350).
• Hernandez, M. E., Sowers, R., Thompson, N., Krishnan, G., & Hsiao-Wecksler, E. T. (2022). Body-in-the-Loop Control of Soft Robotic Exoskeletons During Virtual Manual Labor Tasks. In Virtual Reality (pp. 99-115). River Publishers

Selected Articles in Journals

• Satheeshbabu, S., & Krishnan, G. (2016). Qualitative Mobility Analysis of Wire Flexure Systems Using Load Flow Visualization. Journal of Mechanisms and Robotics, 8(6), 61012.
• Patiballa, S. K., & Krishnan, G. (2017). Estimating Optimized Stress Bounds in Early Stage Design of Compliant Mechanisms. Journal of Mechanical Design, 139(6), 62302.
• Singh, G., & Krishnan, G. (2017). A constrained maximization formulation to analyze deformation of fiber reinforced elastomeric actuators. Smart Materials and Structures, 26(6), 065024.
• Zhang, X., & Krishnan, G. (2017). A nested pneumatic muscle arrangement for amplified stroke and force behavior. Journal of Intelligent Material Systems and Structures.
• Patiballa, S. K., & Krishnan, G. (2018). Qualitative Analysis and Conceptual Design of Planar Metamaterials With Negative Poisson’s Ratio. Journal of Mechanisms and Robotics, 10(2), 021006.
• Singh, G., Xiao, C., Hsiao-Wecksler, E. T., & Krishnan, G. (2018). Design and analysis of coiled fiber reinforced soft pneumatic actuator. Bioinspiration and Biomimetics, 13(3).
• Uppalapati, N. K., & Krishnan, G. (2018). Towards Pneumatic Spiral Grippers: Modeling and Design Considerations. Soft Robotics, 5(6), 695–709.
• Satheeshbabu, S., & Krishnan, G. (2019). Modeling the Bending Behavior of Fiber-Reinforced Pneumatic Actuators Using a Pseudo-Rigid-Body Model. Journal of Mechanisms and Robotics, 11(3), 031011.
• Singh, G., & Krishnan, G. (2020). Designing Fiber-Reinforced Soft Actuators for Planar Curvilinear Shape Matching. Soft Robotics, 7(1), 109–121
• Chowdhary, G., Gazzola, M., Krishnan, G., Soman, C., & Lovell, S. (2019). Soft Robotics as an Enabling Technology for Agroforestry Practice and Research. Sustainability, 11(23), 6751
• Krishnan, G., & Patiballa, S. K. (2020). Conceptual Insightful Synthesis of Spatial Compliant Mechanisms Using the Load Flow Formulation. Journal of Mechanical Design, 142(5),
• Uppalapati, N. K., & Krishnan, G. (2020). VaLeNS: Design of a Novel Variable Length Nested Soft Arm. IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 5(2), 1135–1142.
• Uppalapati, N. K., & Krishnan, G. (2021). Design and Modeling of Soft Continuum Manipulators Using Parallel Asymmetric Combination of Fiber-Reinforced Elastomers. Journal of Mechanisms and Robotics, 13(1).
• Patiballa, S. K., & Krishnan, G. (2022). On the design of three-dimensional mechanical metamaterials using load flow visualization. Mechanics Based Design of Structures and Machines, 50(2), 442–467.
• Kamtikar, S., Marri, S., Walt, B., Uppalapati, N. K., Krishnan, G., & Chowdhary, G. (2022). Visual Servoing for Pose Control of Soft Continuum Arm in a Structured Environment. IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 7(2), 5504-5511.
• AlBeladi, A., Ripperger, E., Hutchinson, S., & Krishnan, G. (2022). Hybrid Eye-in-Hand/Eye-to-Hand Image Based Visual Servoing for Soft Continuum Arms. IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 7(4), 11298–11305.
• Mansouri, M., Krishnan, G., McDonagh, D. C., Zallek, C. M., & Hsiao-Wecksler, E. T. (2023). Review of assistive devices for the prevention of pressure ulcers: an engineering perspective. Disability and Rehabilitation: Assistive Technology, 1-20.
• Thompson, N. A., Shin, S., Kocheril, A. G., Hsiao-Wecksler, E. T., & Krishnan, G. (2023). Design and Validation of a Soft Robotic Simulator for Transseptal Puncture Training. IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, 1-12.
• Koe, K., Marri, S., Walt, B., Kamtikar, S., Uppalapati, N. K., Krishnan, G., & Chowdhary, G. (2025). Learning-Based Position and Orientation Control of a Hybrid Rigid-Soft Arm Manipulator. Journal of Mechanisms and Robotics, 1–14.
• Dash, S., & Krishnan, G. (2025). Design Space Enumeration for Shape Changing Structures using a Bioinspired Heuristic. Journal of Mechanical Design, 1–14.

Articles in Conference Proceedings

• Reck, R. M., & Krishnan, G. (2016). Combining projects and informational sessions to create a comprehensive introduction to the department. 2016 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE), 2016-Novem, 1–5.
• Thompson, N., Zhang, X., Ayala, F., Hsiao-Wecksler, E. T., & Krishnan, G. (2018). Augmented Joint Stiffness and Actuation Using Architectures of Soft Pneumatic Actuators. 2018 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 1533–1538.
• Patiballa, S., Uchikata, K., Ranganath, R. K., & Krishnan, G. (2018, August 26). A Conceptual Design Tool for Synthesis of Spatial Compliant and Shape Morphing Mechanisms. Volume 5B: 42nd Mechanisms and Robotics Conference.
• Satheeshbabu, S., Thompson, N., Xiao, C., & Krishnan, G. (2019). Architectures of Soft Pneumatic Actuators Inspired by Muscle Fiber Arrangements. 2019 2nd IEEE International Conference on Soft Robotics (RoboSoft), 271–276.
• Thompson, N., Sinha, A., & Krishnan, G. (2019). Characterizing architectures of soft pneumatic actuators for a cable-driven shoulder exoskeleton. Proceedings - IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2019-May.
• Singh, G., Patiballa, S., Zhang, X., & Krishnan, G. (2019). A Pipe-Climbing Soft Robot. 2019 International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 8450–8456.
• Satheeshbabu, S., Uppalapati, N. K., Chowdhary, G., & Krishnan, G. (2019). Open Loop Position Control of Soft Continuum Arm Using Deep Reinforcement Learning. 2019 International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 5133–5139.
• Patiballa, S. K., Satheeshbabu, S., & Krishnan, G. (2019). Load-flow based design of compliant mechanisms with embedded soft actuators. Proceedings of the ASME Design Engineering Technical Conference, 5A-2019.
• S. Satheeshbabu, & G. Krishnan, "Analysis of Soft Mechanisms Using a Homogenized Strain Induced Model", in Proceedings of the 2020 USCToMM Symposium on Mechanical Systems and Robotics. USCToMM MSR 2020. Mechanisms and Machine Science, vol 83. Springer, Cham (pp. 179-195)
• Satheeshbabu, S., Uppalapati, N. K., Fu, T., & Krishnan, G. (2020). Continuous Control of a Soft Continuum Arm using Deep Reinforcement Learning. In 2020 3rd IEEE International Conference on Soft Robotics (RoboSoft) (pp. 497-503). IEEE.
• Kumar Uppalapati, N., Walt, B., Havens, A., Mahdian, A., Chowdhary, G., & Krishnan, G. (2020). A Berry Picking Robot With A Hybrid Soft-Rigid Arm: Design and Task Space Control. In Robotics: Science and Systems XVI. Robotics: Science and Systems Foundation.
• Thompson, N. A., Kocheril, A. G., Hsiao-Wecksler, E. T., & Krishnan, G. (2021). A Soft Robotic Simulator for Transseptal Puncture Training. In 2021 Design of Medical Devices Conference. American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
• McDonagh, D., Arquines, K., Hsiao-Wecksler, E. T., Mansouri, M., Krishnan, G., Alabed, M., & Zallek, C. M. (2021). User Centered Approach to the Supra-Functional Needs of People Living with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). In 2021 Design of Medical Devices Conference. American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
• AlBeladi, A., Krishnan, G., Belabbas, M.-A., & Hutchinson, S. (2021). Vision-Based Shape Reconstruction of Soft Continuum Arms Using a Geometric Strain Parametrization. In 2021 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) (pp. 11753-11759). IEEE.
• Kim, S. H., Chang, H.-S., Shih, C.-H., Uppalapati, N. K., Halder, U., Krishnan, G., Mehta, P. G., & Gazzola, M. (2021). A physics-informed, vision-based method to reconstruct all deformation modes in slender bodies. In 2022 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)
• Mansouri, M., Krishnan, G., & Hsiao-Wecksler, E. T. (2022). Design Guidelines for Moving a Human Body on a Bed Using Traveling Waves. In 2022 Design of Medical Devices Conference. American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
• Edward, S., Mansouri, M., Hsiao-Wecksler, E. T., Krishnan, G., (2022).Experimental Characterization and Modeling of a Unit Soft Air Bladder. In 2022 ASME International Design Technical Engineering conference and Computers Information Engineering Conference, St. Louis, MO, August 17-19
• Ripperger, E., & Krishnan, G. (2023, August 20). Design Space Enumerations for Pneumatically Actuated Soft Continuum Manipulators. Volume 8: 47th Mechanisms and Robotics Conference (MR). In 2023 ASME International Design Technical Engineering Conference, Boston, MA, 2023
• Walt, B., & Krishnan, G. (2023). Grasp State Classification in Agricultural Manipulation. 2023 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 4250-4255.

Patents

• Bishop-Moser, J., Krishnan, G., & Kota, S. (2017). U.S. Patent No. 9,835,184. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
• Hsiao-Wecksler, E. T., Farooq, D., Xiao, C., Krishnan, G., Singh, G., & Oo, Y. L. (2017). U.S. Patent No. 9,662,263. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Magazine Articles

• Research work mentioned in Scientific American Article (May 2014) titled "Shape Shifting Things to Come'
• 2016 Fluid Power Magazine titled "New Twist in Pneumatic Muscles" featuring collaborative work with Prof. Elizabeth Hsiao-Wecksler

Teaching Honors

• Engineering Council Outstanding Advisor Award (2016)
• List of Teachers ranked Excellent by their students in Fall 2015 (2015)
• Senior Design team awarded Gold by the Lincoln Arc Welding Association (2015)
• Senior Design team awarded Bronze by the Lincoln Arc Welding Association (2018)

Research Honors

• Freudenstien Young Investigator Award (2017)
• NSF Early Career Development Program Award (CAREER) (2015)

Recent Courses Taught

• SE 100 - Introduction to ISE
• SE 310 - Dsgn of Structures & Mechanism
• SE 411 - Reliability Engineering
• SE 598 - Design of Soft Mechanisms
• SE 598 - Soft Robotics