Embodied Passive Aeroacoustic Perception Enables Relative Sensing and Pursuit Between Aerial Robots
Liu, Y., Prakash, R., Lo, L. Y., Roede, N., Chen, B.
2026 · Under review
Sensing for Informed Action
I build robots that see, decide, and act — transforming multimodal sensing into precise autonomous action.
Postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins University working with Axel Krieger on autonomous surgical robots for precision surgery. I received my PhD degree from Duke University, working with Patrick Codd and Boyuan Chen, working across multimodal perception, surgical autonomy, and machine learning. My systems close the loop from raw sensory data to real-world intervention.
On Job Market for Faculty and Research Scientist Positions
For JHU students: Interested in learning, imaging, or mechatronics? Reach out to me to discuss research opportunities.
Featured video
Robots in action
SonicFly · flight demo — Aerial robots sensing and pursuing through the sound of flight. Watch on YouTube ↗
Research
Selected research
2026 · Under reviewSonicFly: listening to the sound of flight
Passive aeroacoustic sensing enables a flying robot to estimate and pursue another using its intrinsic flight sound.
Under ReviewTumorMap: Fully-Automated 3D Tumor Mapping & Resection
Three-laser platform (OCT + fluorescence + cutting scalpel) with deep learning for noncontact tumor resection in murine models. Submillimeter accuracy.
ICRA 2026See, Plan, Cut
MPC-based volumetric laser surgery with OCT guidance.
RoboSoft 2026PalpAid
Pneumatic tactile sensor for tissue palpation. Mentored project.
Latest
News
2026
Aug 2026
Featured in Duke Bass Connections, reflecting on interdisciplinary research, teaching, and mentorship.
Aug 2026
Invited talk
Invited talk: Sensing–Driven Surgical Autonomy, Arizona State University Medical Robotics Course.
Aug 2026
Joined Johns Hopkins University as a Postdoctoral Fellow with Axel Krieger, following completion of my Ph.D. at Duke.
Aug 2026
SonicFly: our work on passive aeroacoustic perception for aerial robots is available as a preprint and under review.
Jul 2026
Successfully defended my PhD dissertation, “Sensing Driven Surgical Autonomy Through Multimodal Tissue Representation,” at Duke University.
Jul 2026
Our robotic surgery work for rural healthcare was featured in Bass Connections’ team-written project series.
May 2026
Compliant Quasi Direct Drive End-Effector for Safe Robotic Ultrasound accepted at IEEE Transactions on Medical Robotics and Bionics.
Apr 2026
Named STAUBLI Medical Robotics Rising Star at the International Symposium on Medical Robotics (ISMR 2026) in Knoxville, TN — awarded at The Holistic Forum of Medical Robotics Junior Professors workshop.
Mar 2026
Released Robotic Laser Surgery: Overview & Vision — a comprehensive video on our work on autonomous laser surgery and multimodal sensing.
Jan 2026
See, Plan, Cut accepted at ICRA 2026.
Jan 2026
PalpAid accepted at RoboSoft 2026.
2025
Nov 2025
TumorMap paper submitted and available on arXiv.
Apr 2025
Our aerial acoustic sensing research was featured in Duke Forest. Read the resulting SonicFly preprint.
Apr 2025
Zach & Alexa’s “Where is the Boundary” (multimodal tissue boundary) accepted at ICRA Evolving Landscape of Surgical Robotics 2025. Kudos to both.
2024
Dec 2024
Workshop “The Evolving Landscape of Surgical Robotics” accepted for ICRA 2025. See you 19 May in Atlanta.
Dec 2024
Won Rhodes Graduate Fellowship for Interdisciplinary Research (Bass Connections: Reimagining Surgery for Rural Needs).
Sep 2024
JMIR Aging — extracting critical info from clinicians’ notes to identify dementia severity.
Sep 2024
Sampling-Based MPC for Volumetric Ablation (ICRA 2025) now online.
Sep 2024
Compliant Quasi Direct Drive End-Effector for safe robotic ultrasound now online.
Feb 2024
Zach Chen & Alexa Cahilig won Duke CoLab Research Award for tissue boundary test bench.
Feb 2024
Bass Connection Student Research Award for affordable multimodal sensors for laser-tissue studies.
Feb 2024
Talk at IIT Patna: “Innovating Surgical Robotics: Precision and Automation in Minimally Invasive Procedures”.
Jan 2024
Scientific Reports — laser-induced fluorescence to differentiate spine tumor, muscle, and bone.
2023
Dec 2023
DEI micro-award from Duke Graduate & Professional Student Government for mentorship.
Jun 2023
3D Laser-and-Tissue Agnostic Surgical Planning accepted at IROS 2023.
Mar 2023
Maclin Community Connections Grant for underrepresented undergraduates.
Mar 2023
Duke India Initiative travel grant for portable diagnostics in India.
Feb 2023
Presented brain-mimicking phantoms for photoablation at ISMR 2023 (Graduate School travel award).
2021
May 2021
Woo Center for Big Data and Precision Health Fellowship (unstructured EHR work with Dr. Hanzhang Xu).
2020
Oct 2020
Dean’s Research Award for work on flexible sensors.
About
Background & Vision
I am a Postdoctoral Fellow in Mechanical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University, working with Axel Krieger, Ph.D. since August 2026. I completed my Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science at Duke University in 2026, advised by Patrick Codd, M.D. and Boyuan Chen, Ph.D. in the Brain Tool Lab.
I build closed-loop platforms that transform rich sensory data into precise autonomous action — from autonomous laser surgery (OCT + fluorescence + cutting lasers) to neural implicit representations for surgical navigation, acoustic sensing for multi-drone coordination, and multimodal tactile sensing for tissue assessment.
Before Duke, I co-led Futures+ across four countries and founded TEDxNITW. These experiences inform how I think about technology design for communities that need it most.
I served as Lab Manager at the Brain Tool Lab (2023–2026) and Instructor of Record for a Bass Connections course developing teleoperated surgical systems for rural clinics.
On Job Market for Faculty and Research Scientist Positions
My M.S. research at Duke was advised by Xiaoyue Ni; my B.Tech research at NIT Warangal was advised by P. Bangaru Babu.
Current appointment
- Postdoctoral Fellow
Johns Hopkins University
August 2026–present
Education
- Ph.D. MEMS, Duke
2022–2026 - M.S. MEMS, Duke
2020–2021 - B.Tech ME, NIT Warangal
2015–2019
Reviewing
- IEEE TRO
- IEEE/ASME T-MECH
- IEEE RA-L
- CoRL
- IEEE/RSJ IROS
- IEEE ISMR
- IEEE/BSN BSN
- IEEE/RAS RoboSoft
- JMRR
Recognition
Awards
2026
STAUBLI Medical Robotics Rising Star, ISMR
2025
Rhodes Graduate Fellowship for Interdisciplinary Research, Duke
2025
IEEE-EMBS BSN Travel Award
2023
Duke India Initiative Travel Award
2023
Maclin Community Connections Grant
2021
Dean’s Research Award, Duke
2021
Woo Center Big Data Fellowship
2021
Design Health Fellow, Duke
2020
Lab & Curriculum Development Fellowship
2017
S.N. Bose Undergraduate Research Fellowship
2015
Merit Award in Physics and Information Technology, High School Diploma, Government of India
Research leadership
Sponsored research & grants
Selected projects and my role. Project amounts are total support, not individual awards.
Stryker Corporation · $346K · 2025–2026
Ultrasonic aspirator for soft-tissue resection
Project scoping and strategy; led proposal writing and assembly; IP coordination. PI: Patrick Codd, Duke University.
Bass Connections · $23K · 2025–2026
Reimagining Surgery for Rural Needs
Team Lead, Project Manager, and Instructor of Record. PI: Patrick Codd, Duke University.
Bass Connections · $5K · 2024–2025
Flexible sensors for precision laser surgery
Team Lead; led proposal writing. Faculty mentor: Patrick Codd.
Duke India Initiative · $2K · 2023–2024
Portable tumor diagnostics
PI; led proposal writing and built clinical collaborations in India. Faculty mentor: Patrick Codd.
Translation
Patent applications
- Systems and Methods for Neural OCT Tissue Representations for Robot-Guided Intervention
Prakash, R., McNabb, R. P., Codd, P. J. · US 64/045,412 · Provisional, patent pending.
- Systems and Methods for Acoustically Guided Surgery
Prakash, R., Chen, B., Codd, P. J., Lu, Yongjun. · US 63/988,766 · Provisional, patent pending.
- Device for Treating Orthostatic Syncope and Methods Thereof
Fudim, M., Richardson, E., Butch, J., Cross, V., Nandi, B., Lyon, R., Prakash, R., Ouyang, X., Miao, Y., Weil, B., Mitra, K., et al. · US 18/618,762 · Patent application, October 3, 2024.
Invited talks
Sharing the research
- Sensing–Driven Surgical Autonomy
Invited talk · Arizona State University · Medical Robotics Course
- Multimodal Autonomous Robots for Healthcare
Johns Hopkins University · March 30, 2026
- Innovating Surgical Robotics: Enhancing Precision and Automation in Minimally Invasive Procedures
IIT Patna · February 9, 2024
- Understanding the Basics of Natural Language Processing and Its Application to Processing Physicians’ Notes
Duke Family Medicine and Community Health Grand Rounds · September 14, 2021
Research
Systems That See, Decide, and Act
Full-stack platforms integrating hardware, sensing, and algorithms for high-stakes autonomous operation.
2026 · Under reviewSonicFly: listening to the sound of flight
Passive aeroacoustic sensing enables a flying robot to estimate and pursue another using its intrinsic flight sound.
2026 · Under review
OCTN: Neural OCT Tissue Representations
Neural tissue representations for robot-guided precision intervention.
Under ReviewTumorMap: A Laser-Based Surgical Platform for 3D Tumor Mapping and Fully-Automated Tumor Resection
Multimodal surgical platform — leveraging OCT, laser-induced fluorescence, RGB images, to generate 3D pathological maps with learning-based mapping, enabling autonomous resection through laser scalpel. Validated in murine osteosarcoma and soft-tissue sarcoma with submillimeter accuracy.
ICRA 2026See, Plan, Cut: MPC-Based Volumetric Laser Surgery
Sampling-based MPC for OCT-guided volumetric ablation. Optimal trajectories respecting tissue constraints.
RoboSoft 2026PalpAid: Multimodal Pneumatic Tactile Sensor
Pneumatic tactile sensor for tissue palpation — mentored undergraduate project.
ISMR 2025Portable Dual Sensor Visualization
Large-area dual sensing for real-time surgical guidance in resource-constrained settings.
WACV 2026SurgXBench: Explainable VLM for Surgery
Vision-language model benchmark for surgical scene understanding.
BSN 2025Multimodal Tissue Boundary Delineation
Sensor fusion for tissue transition detection. Mentored project.
ISMR 2023
Brain-Mimicking Phantom for Photoablation
Tunable optical/mechanical phantoms for validating robotic laser surgery systems.
IROS 2023
3D Laser-Tissue Agnostic Surgical Planning
Data-driven method for robotic laser surgical planning from 3D scans.
Publications
Papers & scholarly work
Published papers, manuscripts under review, and invited contributions. Status is listed for each work; * denotes equal contribution.
OCTN: Neural OCT Tissue Representations for Robot-Guided Precision Intervention
Prakash, R., McNabb, R. P., Codd, P. J., Lin, S.
2026 · Under review
Intelligent Robotic Assistants for Minimally Invasive Surgery: From Camera Holders to Autonomous Task Partners
Chen, X., Prakash, R., Jopling, J., Krieger, A.
Invited chapter · AI in Robotic Surgery: Foundation, Innovation, and Future Direction · Springer Nature
TumorMap: A Laser-Based Surgical Platform for 3D Tumor Mapping and Fully-Automated Tumor Resection
Ma, G.*, Prakash, R.*, Schleupner, B., Everitt, J. I., Mishra, A., Chen, J., Mann, B., Chen, B., Bridgeman, L., Zhong, P., Draelos, M., Eward, W., Codd, P. J.
Under Review · *equal contribution
Design and Evaluation of a Compliant Quasi Direct Drive End-Effector for Safe Robotic Ultrasound Imaging
Chen, D., Prakash, R., Wang, V., Chen, Z., Dias, S., Bridgeman, L., Oca, S., Mann, B.
IEEE Transactions on Medical Robotics and Bionics · 2026 · Published
See, Plan, Cut: MPC-Based Autonomous Volumetric Robotic Laser Surgery
Prakash, R.*, Wang, V.*, Mishra, A., Yuliarti, D., et al.
ICRA 2026 *equal contribution
PalpAid: Multimodal Pneumatic Tactile Sensor for Tissue Palpation
Yuliarti, D.*, Prakash, R.*, Cheung, H. H., et al.
RoboSoft 2026 Mentored
SurgXBench: Explainable Vision-Language Model Benchmark for Surgery
Cheng, J., Zhao, X., Tripathi, S., Liu, S., Yu, X., Prakash, R., Codd, P. J., Katz, J. E., Lin, S.
WACV 2026
Where is the Boundary? Multimodal Sensor Fusion Test Bench for Tissue Boundary Delineation
Chen, Z., Cahilig, A. C., Dias, S., Kolar, P., Prakash, R., Codd, P. J.
IEEE-EMBS BSN 2025 Mentored
Sampling-Based Model Predictive Control for Volumetric Ablation in Robotic Laser Surgery
Wang, V. Y., Prakash, R., Oca, S. R., LoCicero, E. J., Codd, P. J., Bridgeman, L. J.
ICRA 2025
Portable Dual Sensor Large Area Visualization System for Robotic Laser Surgery
Prakash, R., Wang, V., Chen, Z., Bridgeman, L., Codd, P. J.
ISMR 2025
Extracting Critical Information from Unstructured Clinicians’ Notes Data to Identify Dementia Severity Using a Rule-Based Approach: Feasibility Study.
Prakash, R., Dupre, M. E., Østbye, T., Xu, H.
JMIR Aging 7, e57926
A Rule-Based Framework to Identify Severity of Dementia from Unstructured Electronic Health Record Data
Prakash, R., Dupre, M. E., Østbye, T., Xu, H.
AAIC 2023 · Alzheimer’s & Dementia 19(S1): e075325
A Blinded Study Using Laser-Induced Endogenous Fluorescence Spectroscopy to Differentiate Ex Vivo Spine Tumor, Healthy Muscle, and Healthy Bone
Sperber, J., Zachem, T. J., Prakash, R., Owolo, E., Yamamoto, K., Nguyen, A. D., Hockenberry, H., Ross, W. A., Herndon, J. E., Codd, P. J., Goodwin, C. R.
Scientific Reports 14(1), 1921
3D Laser-and-Tissue Agnostic Data-Driven Method for Robotic Laser Surgical Planning
Ma, G., Prakash, R., Mann, B., Ross, W., Codd, P. J.
IROS 2023
Brain-Mimicking Phantom for Photoablation and Visualization
Prakash, R., Yamamoto, K. K., Oca, S. R., Ross, W., Codd, P. J.
ISMR 2023
Comparative Study of Fluid Flow and Heat Transfer in Microchannels with Uniformly Varying Cross-Section
Chatterjee, A., Valaparla, R. K., Prakash, R., Balasubramanian, K.
ETME 2019
Optimization of Laser Photoablation for Robotic Soft-Tissue Surgery
Ross, W., Prakash, R., Ma, G., Eward, W., Mann, B., Codd, P. J.
DMMR Workshop @ IROS 2023 · Non–peer-reviewed
Computer Vision for Increased Operative Efficiency via Identification of Instruments in the Neurosurgical Operating Room: A Proof-of-Concept Study
Zachem, T. J., Chen, S. F., Venkatraman, V., Sykes, D. A., Prakash, R., Spellicy, S., Suarez, A. D., Ross, W., Codd, P. J.
arXiv preprint · 2023 · Non–peer-reviewed
Teaching & Mentorship
Building the Next Generation
Mentorship across high school, undergraduate, and graduate research, with publications at ICRA, RoboSoft, and BSN and placements at Google, Microsoft, Medtronic, and Ethicon.
Instructor of Record · 2025–26 · Team Lead & Project Manager
Reimagining Surgery for Rural Needs: Robotics Teleoperation
Completed Bass Connections course (Fall 2025–Spring 2026): teleoperated laser surgery for rural clinics, optomechanical assembly, and hardware/software integration. Course evaluation: 4.25/5 (Fall 2025).
Guest Lecturer · 2024, 2025, 2026
Intro to Medical Robotics
ML for Medical Robotics and Design of Experiments. Scaffolded self-learning for diverse experience levels.
Curriculum Developer · 2024
Collaborative Expeditions
Self-learning modules on DOE, ML, Literature Review with reflections and case studies.
TA · 2021–22
Experiment Design & Research Methods
Research scoping, rapid prototyping, portfolio development. 3 semesters.
Guest Lecturer · Spring 2026 · ME/BME 555
Engineering Technology in Biomedical Applications
Robotics and AI for Laser Surgery: multimodal sensing, learning, neural state representations, and custom optomechanical hardware.
Mentees
Students & Outcomes
Tarun Vinodkumar
Johns Hopkins University — Autonomous robots for stroke intervention
Ongoing
Vincent Wang
Duke Ph.D. candidate — Safety critical controls for precision robotic surgery
Ongoing
Yongjun Lu
Duke — Ultrasonic Aspirator
→ Clinical OR data acquisition · Ethicon, J&J
Caroline Chen
Duke MS — Segmentation
→ ISMR 2024 (Poster) · ML Engineer, Google
Changxin Yu
Duke MS — OCT Segmentation
→ 3rd Prize Symposium · Microsoft
Antony Farrand
Duke MS — Acoustic Surgery
→ Duke MEMS Poster Symposium
Devi Yuliarti
Duke — Tactile Sensor
→ IEEE-RAS RoboSoft 2026 (Co-first author), IEEE ICRA 2026
Zacharias Chen
Duke — Tissue Boundary
→ IEEE-EMBS BSN 2025, ICRA ELSR Workshop · Medtronic Hugo; IEEE TMRB submission (conditionally accepted)
Nikhil Aaryath
Duke — UA Tissue
→ Robotic data pipeline
Alexa Cahilig
Duke — Multimodal Tissue Boundary Test Bench
→ IEEE ICRA ELSR Poster 2025, IEEE-EMBS BSN 2025 Paper
Aakriti
IIT Bombay — Mechano-Acoustic Speech Information
→ Acoustic feature analysis and experimental characterization
Akshit Srivastava
IIT Bombay — Mechano-Acoustic Speech Information
→ Contributed to characterization and analysis
Sarah Dias
HS — Tissue Boundary
→ IEEE-EMBS BSN 2025, ICRA ELSR Workshop; IEEE TMRB submission (conditionally accepted)
Prithu Kolar
NCSSM — Acoustic/Video
→ IEEE-EMBS BSN 2025 · Park Scholar, NC State
Felicity Lipchak
NCSSM — Acoustic/Video
→ Dartmouth College
Portfolio
Beyond the Lab
Leadership, community innovation, and institution-building.
IROS 2026 · PittsburghELSRFoundation Models Meet New Robotic Embodiments
Workshop co-organizer · 2026
The Evolving Landscape of Surgical Robotics
Organizers: Lin, S., Prakash, R., Lu, J., Jiang, F., Dou, Q., Goldberg, K.
Service · 2025
ICRA Evolving Landscape of Surgical Robotics Workshop Organizer
“The Evolving Landscape of Surgical Robotics” at ICRA 2025. Curated lineup of 12 international researchers. Organizers: Lin, S., Prakash, R., Fichera, L., Mattos, L., Su, H., Yip, M. C., Codd, P., Webster, R. J. III.
Foresight & Innovation · 2020
Futures+: Multi-National Deep Tech Innovation Program
Co-led a 6-month innovation program across Bhutan, Indonesia, India, and Singapore with 16 partners. Three finalist solutions deployed in northeast India and Indonesia. Direct engagement with farming communities shaped modular, repairable design principles.
Founder · 2018
TEDxNITW
Founded the TEDx chapter at NIT Warangal. Organized the inaugural event with 400+ attendees — speaker curation, sponsorships, and production.
Fellowship · 2020–21
Duke Garage Lab
Lab & Curriculum Development Fellowship. Co-designed and built Duke’s newest prototyping space for the MEMS capstone program.
Fellowship · 2021
Design Health Fellow
Duke Design Health program — clinical immersion and needs-finding methodology for healthcare innovation.
Leadership · January 2022–May 2023
MEMS Graduate Student Committee
President. Department events, student advocacy, and cross-lab networking for 100+ graduate students.
Media
Features & Coverage
Videos, interviews, and media coverage of my work.
Profiles & press
Research in the news
Duke Bass Connections
Researcher profile · August 17, 2026
Leading across disciplines: my Bass Connections experience
A profile of my work as an instructor, researcher, and mentor, connecting surgical robotics with the needs of rural healthcare providers.
Read the profile ↗Photo: Duke Bass Connections
IEEE Spectrum
Video Friday · 2026
SonicFly in Video Friday
Our aerial sensing demonstration was selected for IEEE Spectrum’s weekly robotics video roundup.
Read the roundup ↗India Today
Science · August 17, 2026
SonicFly in India Today
Science coverage of our acoustic drone-following research.
Read the story ↗Duke Bass Connections
Team-written project feature · July 2, 2026
How Can Robotic Surgery Improve Access To Specialized Healthcare in Rural Communities?
Our team describes the robotic laser surgery prototype, clinician-informed design, and interdisciplinary collaboration behind Reimagining Surgery for Rural Needs.
Read the team’s story ↗
More SonicFly coverage
- DroneXL · Duke University’s sound-guided drone pursuitAugust 18, 2026
- Elettronica In · SonicFly: following another drone through soundAugust 22, 2026 · Italian-language coverage
Featured video
Robots in action
SonicFly · flight demo — Aerial robots sensing and pursuing through the sound of flight. Watch on YouTube ↗
Conferences
Research videos & conference photos
Selected conference moments and presentations.
Video · ICRA 2026
See, Plan, Cut
MPC-based autonomous volumetric robotic laser surgery with OCT guidance. Full paper video.
Video · RoboSoft 2026
PalpAid
Pneumatic tactile sensor for tissue palpation. Full paper video for the mentored RoboSoft 2026 project.
Article
Drones Transforming Research in Duke Forest
Feature on our multi-drone acoustic sensing work for environmental monitoring and wildlife tracking.
Video
Day in the Life: Duke Robotics
A look at my day-to-day work at Duke — from the Brain Tool Lab to surgical robotics, sensing, and building systems that see, decide, and act.
Duke University
Video
Master’s Degrees in Mechanical Engineering, Duke University
Featured in Duke MEMS program video highlighting graduate research and robotics at Duke.