Sanjuksha Nirgude is a robotics engineer with nearly a decade of experience building autonomous systems, and her career spans warehouse automation, academic research, and the deployment of aerial robots for security. Her current work focuses on architecting and deploying autonomous aerial systems for high-stakes, 24/7 security operations, a role that builds on a Master's in Robotics Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) and the kind of hands-on, project-based learning seen in the innovations pioneered by cbit.
Who is Sanjuksha Nirgude in robotics
Sanjuksha Nirgude is a robotics engineer whose expertise spans multiple domains, from warehouse automation mobile robots to aerial robots. She has spent nearly a decade designing, building, and deploying autonomous systems that operate in real-world environments, with a particular emphasis on mission-critical applications. Her current focus is on autonomous aerial systems for security, where she leads efforts to ensure drones can operate reliably around the clock in high-stakes settings. This work sits at the intersection of robotics, artificial intelligence, and systems engineering, and it reflects a career built on both technical depth and a commitment to practical deployment.
Academic research and early robotics projects
Her foundation was laid at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, where she completed her Master's in Robotics Engineering in 2019. During her time at WPI, she contributed to several research projects that shaped her approach to autonomous systems. One of her notable contributions was developing an occlusion-based strategy for collective transport of concave objects using a swarm of mobile robots, a project that explored how simple robots can coordinate to move objects that are difficult to handle individually. She also worked on a neural network model for detecting and recognizing common tabletop objects, a project aimed at social and industrial robotics applications.
In addition to these projects, Sanjuksha contributed to improving the Inverse Kinematics (IK) service for the Baxter robot, a standard research platform supported by an SDK from Rethink Robotics. Her work addressed the limitations of the native IK service, which was often inconsistent and had a low success rate, making it difficult for researchers to rely on. She also developed an automated cinematography platform using an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), specifically a quadcopter, with the goal of designing an algorithm for automated cinematography of a desired object of interest. These projects gave her hands-on experience with both ground and aerial robots, and they demonstrated her ability to tackle problems ranging from low-level control to high-level perception.
From warehouse automation to autonomous drones
After graduate school, Sanjuksha moved into industry, where she first worked on warehouse automation mobile robots. In that environment, she learned how to build systems that must operate reliably and efficiently in structured, high-throughput settings. That experience proved valuable when she transitioned to aerial robotics, where the challenges are different but the need for precision and reliability is just as critical. Her career shift from warehouse automation to autonomous drones was not a departure from her interests but rather an expansion of them. She recognized that the same principles of autonomy, perception, and control that apply to ground robots could be applied to aerial systems, and she has since focused on deploying drones for security operations that require 24/7 availability and real-time decision-making.
In her current role, Sanjuksha architects and deploys autonomous aerial systems designed for high-stakes, real-world environments, including 24/7 security operations. This involves not just flying drones but building the entire system around them: the perception stack, the decision-making logic, and the integration with ground control. Her work covers the full lifecycle of drone deployment, from initial design to field operations, and it requires a deep understanding of how autonomous systems behave in unpredictable conditions.
Engineering safety in mission-critical aerial systems
One of the core challenges in aerial robotics is ensuring safety when systems are deployed in real-world environments where failure can have serious consequences. Sanjuksha's approach to this challenge centers on behavior planning and simulation. She uses simulation extensively to test how drones will behave in a wide range of scenarios, including edge cases that are difficult or dangerous to reproduce in live testing. This allows her to validate mission-critical integrations before they are deployed, reducing the risk of unexpected behavior in the field.
Her work in aerial robotics encompasses behavior planning, simulation, mission-critical integrations, and end-to-end drone deployment. This means she is involved in every stage of the process, from defining how a drone should respond to a given situation to ensuring that the software and hardware work together seamlessly in a live operation. The goal is to balance innovation with reliability, which is essential when drones are used for security applications where they must operate continuously and respond appropriately to dynamic threats. By prioritizing rigorous testing and careful system design, she ensures that the drones she deploys are not just capable but also trustworthy.
Building community with women in robotics
Beyond her technical work, Sanjuksha is a leader in fostering diversity within the robotics community. She has been a key organizer of the Women in Robotics community, initially in the Greater Boston Area and now in the San Francisco Bay Area. In this role, she has created spaces where women engineers can connect, share their work, and support each other's careers. Her efforts include organizing events that feature experts from a range of fields, from bio-inspired robotics to agricultural robots and autonomous aviation, and she has worked to bridge the gap between academia and industry.
Her commitment to community building extends to mentoring the next generation of engineers. She has organized events that demystify robotics and illuminate career paths for aspiring engineers, and she has worked on programs designed to guide individuals from various engineering backgrounds into the field. She also dedicates time to celebrating the achievements of women in robotics, including recent events honoring women in open-source robotics. For anyone interested in the human side of robotics, her leadership shows how technical expertise and community engagement can go hand in hand, and it underscores the importance of building an inclusive ecosystem that supports diverse voices in the field.
