Rate My Professor N. J. Sanket

Nitin J. Sanket is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Robotics Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, with affiliations in Computer Science and Electrical and Computer Engineering. He earned a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Maryland, College Park in 2021, an M.S. in Robotics from the University of Pennsylvania in 2016, and a B.E. in Electronics and Communication from M. S. Ramaiah Institute of Technology in Bangalore, India in 2013. Prior to his current role, he served as an Assistant Clinical Professor at the University of Maryland, College Park, where he mentored undergraduates and contributed to research on active vision algorithms for mobile robot navigation.

Professor Sanket directs the Perception and Autonomous Robotics (PeAR) Group, focusing on advancing autonomy for tiny mobile robots through bio-inspired algorithms that emphasize active perception, interactive perception, novel perception, and novel sensing. His work draws from nature, including insects and bats, to develop systems with onboard sensing and computation for tasks such as pollination, search and rescue, and navigation in challenging environments. In 2025, he received a $705,000 NSF grant to advance bio-inspired sound navigation for small robots. His doctoral research produced the first prototype of a RoboBeeHive using hummingbird-sized nano-quadrotors capable of flower pollination with fully onboard processing.