People

Faculty
David J. Cappelleri
Associate Professor
dcappell@purdue.edu

David J. Cappelleri is an Associate Professor in the School of Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University and in the Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering (by courtesy).  Prof. Cappelleri founded the Multi-Scale Robotics & Automation Lab that performs cutting-edge research on robotic and automation systems at various length scales: macro-scale (cm to m), meso-scale (~100’s of um to a few mm’s), micro-scale (10’s of um to 100’s of um), and nano-scale (nm).  He is currently co-leading a Purdue Engineering Initiative in Autonomous and Connected Systems and is the Purdue site director for the NSF Engineering Research Center on the Internet of Things for Precision Agriculture (IoT4Ag).  Prof. Cappelleri has received various awards, such as the NSF CAREER Award, Harvey N. Davis Distinguished Assistant Professor Teaching Award, John J. Gallen Memorial Award, and the Association for Lab Automation Young Scientist Award.

Prof. Cappelleri received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Villanova University, and The Pennsylvania State University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics.


Lab Members

Postdoctoral Researchers

PhD Students

Georges Adam
Ph.D. Candidate, Mechanical Engineering
adamg@purdue.edu

Microrobotics/Micromanipulation

Aaron Davis
Ph.D. Student, Mechanical Engineering
davi1381@purdue.edu

Mobile Microrobotics

Aarya Deb
Ph.D. Student, Mechanical Engineering
deb8@purdue.edu

Agricultural Robotics

Kitae Kim
Ph.D. Student, Mechanical Engineering
kim3686@purdue.edu

Agricultural Robotics

Juncheng Li
Ph.D. Student, Mechanical Engineering

Robotics for Resilient Extra-Terrestrial Habitats

Liyuan Tan
Ph.D. Student, Mechanical Engineering
tan328@purdue.edu

Mobile Microrobotics

Masters Students

Max Beckemeier
M.S. Mechanical Engineering (Professional)
mbeckeme@purdue.edu

Pharmaceutical Robotics and Automation

Aayush Mathur
M.S. Mechanical Engineering
mathur30@purdue.edu

Pharmaceutical Robotics and Automation

Jongkwang Park
M.S. Mechanical Engineering (Professional)
park1445@purdue.edu

Perception for Pharmaceutical Robotics and Automation

Jarod Throckmorton
M.S. Mechanical Engineering
jthrockm@purdue.edu

Surgical Robotics

Undergraduate Students

Allison Earnhardt
B.S. Physics
aearnhar@purdue.edu

Mobile Microrobots

Brian Huang
B.S. Mechanical Engineering
huan1534@purdue.edu

Agricultural Robotics

Siddharth Nathella
B.S. Mechanical Engineering
snathell@purdue.edu

Mobile Microrobot Teams

Ethan Radke
B.S. Mechanical Engineering

Medical Devices

Agathiya Tharun
M.S. Mechanical Engineering
atharun@purdue.edu

Robotics for Resilient Extra-Terrestrial Habitats


Lab Alumni

Postdoctoral Researchers

  • Sagar Chowdhury
    Current Position: Caterpillar
  • Benjamin Johnson
    Current Position: ASML
  • Maria Guix Noguera
    Current Position: Juan de la Cierva PostDoc Fellow, Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC), Barcelona, Spain

PhD Students

  • Arindam Chowdhury (May 2021)
    Current Position: KLA Tencor
    Thesis Title: Advanced Perception for Robotics and Automation Applications
  • Wuming Jing (December 2013)
    Current Position: Assistant Professor, Lawrence Technological University
    Thesis Title: Towards Functional Magnetic Microrobotics
  • Benjamin Johnson (May 2020)
    Current Position: Post-doctoral Researcher, Purdue University
    Thesis Title: Local Magnetic Field System Design and Control for Independent Control of Multiple Mobile Microrobots
  • Yangbo Long (December 2014)
    Current Position: Siemens
    Thesis Title: Design, Modeling, and Control of an Overactuated Micro Aerial Vehicle
  • Daniel McArthur (August 2019)
    Current Position: Sandia National Labs
    Thesis Title: Design of an Autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicle for Physical Interaction with the Environment
  • Ben Abruzzo (May 2021)
    Current Position: U.S. Army Picatinny Arsenal
    Thesis Title: Autonomy and Perception of Robotic Teams and Agents for Cooperative Localization and Threat Discrimination

Masters Students

  • Ze An (2019)
    Current Position: Pony.ai
    Thesis Title: Agricultural Robotic Platform for In-row and Under Canopy Crop Monitoring and Assessment (Project)
  • Shi Bai (2012)
    Current Position: Stevens Institute of Technology
    Thesis Title: Investigations on Lightweight SLAM Solutions for Mico Aerial Vehicles
  • Chenghao Bi (2019)
    Current Position: Medtronic
    Thesis Title: Design of Magnetic Tumbling Microrobots for Complex Environments and Biomedical Appliacations
  • Yang Ding (2019)
    Current Position: Tiger Technology
    Thesis Title: Design of a Robotic Cannula for Robotic Lumbar Discectomy
  • Andreas Gelardos (2013)
    Thesis Title: MAV Platform Design, Analysis, and Control
  • Zekun Gong (2018)
  • Peter Jaron (2015)
  • Bo Ji (2019)
    Thesis Title: Design and Control of a Low-cost Micromanipulator
  • Benjamin Johnson (2015)
    Current Position: PhD Student, Purdue University
    Thesis Title: Design of a Surgical Manipulator System for Lumbar Discectomy Procedures
  • Che Kun Law (2018)
    Current Position: Vicarious AI
    Thesis Title: Autonomous Mobile Robot for Agriculture Crop Monitoring and Precision Agriculture (Project)
  • Zilin Li (December 2022)
    Current Position: Stryker
    Thesis Title: Robotic Inspection for the Oil & Gas Industry (Project)
  • Paras H. Patel (2012)
    Current Position: Siemens
    Thesis Title: Design and Control of a T-Quadrotor Micro Aerial Vehicle
  • Ganesh Ram Ramanujam Karthikeyan (2018)
    Current Position: Cummins Inc.
  • Joseph Seymour (2015)
  • Vinoth Venkatesan (2018)
    Current Position: The MathWorks, Inc.
    Thesis Title: Flexible automation for meso and micro-scale manipulation and assembly
  • Tianqi Ye (2018)

Undergraduate Students

  • Archit Agarawal
  • Nitya Agrawal
  • Karl Ang
  • Alex Calisto
  • Joseph Jia Rong Chen
  • Yong-Gyun Cho (2019)
  • Ryan Craker (2020)
    Current Position: Allegion, PLC
  • Thomas Daily
  • Alessandro DiLeonardo
  • Andrew Domicolo
    Current Position: Foster Wheeler
  • Ryan Drager (2020)
  • Matt Edwards
    Current Position: Pratt & Whitney
  • Nathan Esantsi (2019)
    Current Position: Graduate Student, Carnegie Mellon University
  • Michael Fatovic
    Current Position: Jewel Precision
  • Evan Fisher
  • Kevin Girardi
  • Abby Grillo (2021)
    Current Position: PhD Student, Vanderbilt University
  • Ateev Gupta
    Current Position: Intern at Apple Inc.
  • Patrick Hammer
    Current Position: Zodiac Aerospace
  • Christopher Harnack
  • Jack Hyslop
  • Jianxiong Wang (2018)
    Current Position: Graduate Student, UCLA
  • Yoo Hyun (Wendy) Kim
  • David Kleszyk
  • Cara Koepele (2018)
    Current Position: General Motors
    Thesis Title: 3D-Printed Microswimmers with Nanostructures for Real-Time Color Tracking
  • Tyler Landers
  • Jason Lee
  • Darren Lie
  • Zihao Lin (2020)
  • Matt Lyng (2019)
    Current Position: Graduate Student, University of Michigan
  • Sean Lyttle
    Current Position: ETH Zurich
  • Alfred Mayalu
    Current Position: Virginia Tech
  • Noah Mehringer
  • Eric Mesina
  • Preethi Moorthy
  • Amanda Mudd (2021)
  • Zhangjian Ouyang (2019)
  • Nick Pagano
    Current Position: Harrington Hoists
  • Anirudh Panuganty
    Thesis Title: 2020
  • Fagun Patel (2020)
  • Naveed Riaziat (2020)
    Current Position: Graduate Student, Johns Hopkins University
  • Sharon Rooker
  • Josiah Rudge (2020)
    Current Position: Graduate Student, Georgia Tech
  • Danielle Sack
  • Kuvarjit Sagar
  • Haripriya Sakthivel (2020)
  • Mark Schmidt
  • Broderick Schwartz (2019)
    Current Position: Graduate Student, University of Iowa
  • Stephanie Senkevich
  • Madyson Shank (2020)
  • Michael Shanks (2020)
    Current Position: Graduate student, Purdue University
  • Marshall Tatro
  • Nachiket Vatkar (2021)
  • Nikolaos Vitoroulis
  • Bogdan Vlahov
    Current Position: Graduate Student, Georgia Tech
  • Ethan Wang
  • Jeremy Wang
    Current Position: University of Pennsylvania
  • Qing Wen (2020)
  • Ellexi Wickstrom
  • Andrew Williams
  • Bixing Yan
  • Xingyu Zhou
  • Jahel Carrera Zuniga