AG Akhilesh Gonabal

Robotics, cyber-physical systems, and automation

Akhilesh Anant Gonabal

I build robotics, embedded systems, and cyber-physical automation for real-world use, drawing on experience from power-distribution automation, academic research at NITK and IISc, and surgical-navigation robotics at CAPLA.

View Projects Resume
Akhilesh Gonabal
Current work Leading development of robotic cranial and spine surgical-navigation systems at CAPLA, integrating optical instrument tracking, image-to-patient registration, and collaborative-robot motion control on Linux/Jetson platforms.

Research direction

From automation systems to robotics for real-world impact.

My path spans industrial automation and research-led robotics. After starting in SCADA-based power distribution automation, I moved into cyber-physical systems research at NITK, where I helped build a lab-scale ACPS platform using STM32/ESP32 sensor-actuator nodes and edge-fog-cloud architecture. At IISc, I worked on multimodal autonomous mobile robots for constrained inspection, contributing across mechanical design, embedded control, and ROS2-based autonomy. I now lead robotics development at CAPLA, building robotic cranial and spine surgical-navigation systems, and I remain focused on robust robotics for high-impact domains.

Selected work

Robotics and research systems

All projects
Ground mobility test of the multimodal robot

2024 - 2025 | Research Assistant, IISc Bangalore

Multimodal Mobile Robot

Autonomous multimodal robot for inspection and surveillance in constrained environments, combining bio-inspired mechanisms, distributed embedded control, perception, and ROS2 teleoperation.

  • Simulated robot mechanisms in SolidWorks Motion Analysis to estimate torque, force profiles, and component requirements.
  • Designed a distributed embedded architecture where local microcontrollers handle mechanisms and a Jetson board coordinates system-level control.
ROS2Jetson NanoIntel RealSenseSolidWorksPythonC++
ACPS sensor-actuator node hardware

2022 - 2024 | Junior Research Fellow, NITK Surathkal

ACPS Lab Platform

Lab-scale applied cyber-physical systems platform for education and research, with sensor-actuator nodes, edge-fog-cloud architecture, and real-time data acquisition.

  • Developed ARM-based sensor-actuator nodes for real-time acquisition and control experiments.
  • Integrated edge, fog, and cloud layers to demonstrate cyber-physical system interactions.
STM32ESP32MQTTPythonWeb Technologies

2025 - Present | Robotics Lead, Capla India

Surgical-Navigation Robotics at CAPLA

Robotic cranial and spine surgical-navigation systems combining collaborative-robot motion control, optical instrument tracking, and image-to-patient registration in C++/Qt/QML on Linux/Jetson platforms.

  • Lead development of robotic cranial and spine surgical-navigation systems on Linux/Jetson platforms.
  • Integrate hand-eye calibration, optical instrument tracking, image-to-patient registration, and collaborative-robot (DENSO, Huayan Elfin) motion control.
C++Qt/QMLEmbedded LinuxNVIDIA JetsonCollaborative robotsOptical tracking

Publications and patents

Recent outputs

View all publications

Patent | June 2026

A System for Inspection and Maintenance of Complex Environments Using Multiple-Modal Operations and Method Thereof

Akhilesh Anant Gonabal, et al.

Indian Patent Office

Granted

Patent No. 591148

Conference Paper | December 2023

Lab Experimental Framework for Demonstrating Integral Concepts of Applied Cyber-Physical Systems

Akhilesh Anant Gonabal, Neil Jose, K V Gangadharan

Eleventh ISSS National Conference on MEMS, Smart Materials, Structures and Systems Coimbatore, India