Education
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Ph.D. in Computer Science (GPA: 3.91/4.0). Advised by Prof. Girish Chowdhary and Prof. Julia Hockenmaier.
Ph.D. in Computer Science (GPA: 3.91/4.0). Advised by Prof. Girish Chowdhary and Prof. Julia Hockenmaier.
Fall 2022 - Present
University of Maryland, College Park
M.Eng. in Robotics. Advisors: Prof. Pratap Tokekar, Prof. Ryan Williams.
M.Eng. in Robotics. Advisors: Prof. Pratap Tokekar, Prof. Ryan Williams.
2019 - 2021
Thapar University, India
B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering.
B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering.
2013 - 2017
Employment
Earthsense Inc.
AI Intern. Deployed 6 Vision-Language Models (3B - 72B params) for autonomous navigation. Built end-to-end ML pipelines. Deployed Grounded SAM2 for scalable data-generation workflows.
AI Intern. Deployed 6 Vision-Language Models (3B - 72B params) for autonomous navigation. Built end-to-end ML pipelines. Deployed Grounded SAM2 for scalable data-generation workflows.
Summer 2025
Urbana, IL
Urbana, IL
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Graduate Research Assistant in the Distributed Autonomous Systems Lab (DASLAB). Research on natural language-conditioned navigation for mobile manipulators using VLMs.
Graduate Research Assistant in the Distributed Autonomous Systems Lab (DASLAB). Research on natural language-conditioned navigation for mobile manipulators using VLMs.
Aug 2022 - Present
Urbana, IL
Urbana, IL
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Teaching Assistant / Co-developer for CS498GC: Mobile Robotics for CS (Prof. Girish Chowdhary). Designed assignments on ROS2, MoveIt2, SLAM, and mobile manipulators.
Teaching Assistant / Co-developer for CS498GC: Mobile Robotics for CS (Prof. Girish Chowdhary). Designed assignments on ROS2, MoveIt2, SLAM, and mobile manipulators.
Fall 2025
Urbana, IL
Urbana, IL
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Teaching Assistant for CS444: Deep Learning for Computer Vision (Prof. Svetlana Lazebnik). Nominated for TA award by Prof. Lazebnik.
Teaching Assistant for CS444: Deep Learning for Computer Vision (Prof. Svetlana Lazebnik). Nominated for TA award by Prof. Lazebnik.
Spring 2025
Urbana, IL
Urbana, IL
Technical Skills
- Python
- C++
- PyTorch
- JAX
- CUDA
- Docker
- Linux
- ROS 1 / ROS 2
- MoveIt / MoveIt2
- RViz / RViz2
- Gazebo
- Blender
- Git
- LaTeX
Methods: EKF, GMM/EM, Bayesian State Estimation, MPPI, SLIC, VLMs/VLAs, Diffusion Models (DiT, DDPM), U-Nets
Publications
WaypointGen++
Extending VLM-based navigation waypoint generation for mobile manipulators in outdoor environments.
In Prep, IEEE RAL, 2026
WaypointGen: Natural Language to 2D Navigation Waypoints Generation using VLMs
A 14-step pipeline grounding natural language instructions to 2D navigation waypoints using QWEN 3 VLM, SLIC in BEV, and MPPI trajectory selection.
CSL SC, 2026
Active Semantic Mapping with Mobile Manipulator in Horticultural Environments
Efficient active semantic mapping using probabilistic semantic octomaps, next-best-view planning, and ray-casting for target-focused exploration.
ICRA, 2025
Plant Placement using Natural Language Grounding
Text-enabled FarmBot system translating natural language commands to valid plant placement configurations using fine-tuned CodeT5.
AIFARMS, 2023
Intermittent Deployment for Large-Scale Multi-Robot Forage Perception
Integrated pipeline for large-scale pasture monitoring with synthetic data generation, spatiotemporal prediction, and multi-robot deployment.
IEEE TASE, 2021
DeepPaSTL: Spatio-Temporal Deep Learning Methods for Predicting Long-Term Pasture Terrains
Bi-directional ConvLSTM encoder-decoder for spatiotemporal pasture growth forecasting from spatial height measurements.
Agronomy, 2021
Smartphone Optical Sensors
Multispectral fundus eye camera prototype featured in Optics and Photonics News.
OPN, 2019
Reinforcement Learning for Near Infrared Spectrum Data for Non-Destructive Testing of Fruits
Combining reinforcement and supervised learning for NIR-based non-destructive fruit quality testing.
SPIE, 2020
Teaching
CS498GC: Mobile Robotics for CS - Co-developer and TA
Designed assignments on ROS2, MoveIt2, SLAM, mobile manipulators. Course website: kulbir-singh-ahluwalia.com/cs498gc/fa25/
Designed assignments on ROS2, MoveIt2, SLAM, mobile manipulators. Course website: kulbir-singh-ahluwalia.com/cs498gc/fa25/
Fall 2025
CS444: Deep Learning for Computer Vision - Teaching Assistant
Nominated for TA award by Prof. Svetlana Lazebnik.
Nominated for TA award by Prof. Svetlana Lazebnik.
Spring 2025
Awards
TA Award Nomination - CS Department, UIUC (by Prof. Svetlana Lazebnik)
Spring 2025