Himani Sinhmar

Himani Sinhmar

Postdoctoral Research Associate  ·  Princeton University

I study how groups of simple robots can coordinate to do hard things, with provable guarantees on safety and correctness.

I work on making robots that are safe, simple, and work together. Most of my projects ask: how little can a robot know or carry, and still do something useful? I build the controllers, prove they work, and test them on real hardware.

Research · connected projects
Origami MetaBot,Bio-inspired Robotics Origami MetaBot Swarm Encapsulation,Swarm Intelligence Swarm Control UAV Motion Planning,Safe Control UAV Planning Consensus under Sensor Bias,Multi-Agent Systems Consensus & Bias Task & Motion Planning,Formal Methods Task & Motion Spacecraft Rendezvous,Safe Control Spacecraft Nav
Swarm Intelligence Safe Control Formal Methods Bio-inspired Hover to explore · Click to read

I am a postdoctoral research associate with Prof. Naomi Leonard at Princeton University. I obtained my PhD in robotics at Cornell University advised by Prof. Hadas Kress-Gazit. Prior to my doctoral studies, I earned my Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Aerospace Engineering from IIT Bombay.

I have collaborated with the Cohen Group, Apsel Lab, and Laboratory for Molecular Engineering to develop autonomous micron-scale origami robots active at time and length scales comparable to biological microorganisms.

Outside research, I enjoy running and hiking, and I am an avid reader with a particular interest in world affairs, human psychology, and philosophy of science.

I want robots that work in the real world: unpredictable environments, cheap sensors, no cloud connection. My approach is to design controllers with formal correctness guarantees, so the math tells you it works before you ever run it on hardware. The projects below span swarms, UAVs, manipulation, and bio-inspired micro-robots, but they share the same thread: doing more with less. Research statement →

Motion Planning of UAVs
Safe Control Motion Planning of UAVs

Safe motion planning for resource-constrained UAVs using Reference Governor — validated on a Crazyflie in real-time.

Minimalistic Robotic Swarm
Swarm Intelligence Minimalistic Robotic Swarm

Correct-by-construction swarm controllers for target encapsulation using only local noisy sensors — no communication, no localization.

Locomotion of an Origami Robot
Bio-inspired Robotics Locomotion of an Origami Robot

Locomotion synthesis for electrically programmable micron-scale origami robots that fold, reconfigure, and swim in biocompatible solutions.

Task and Motion Planner for Robot Manipulation
Formal Methods Task and Motion Planner for Robot Manipulation

Provably correct task-and-motion planner for robot manipulation that satisfies complex temporal logic specifications.

Consensus under sensor bias
Swarm Intelligence Consensus under sensor bias

Distributed consensus algorithm that achieves agreement despite persistent sensor biases with unknown bounds — no centralized coordinator needed.

Autonomous Navigation for Spacecraft Rendezvous
Safe Control Autonomous Navigation for Spacecraft Rendezvous

Line-of-sight guidance law for autonomous spacecraft rendezvous and docking with Lyapunov-based safety guarantees.

2024
Practical and Safe Navigation Function Based Motion Planning of UAVs
Himani Sinhmar, Marcus Greiff, Stefano Di Cairano
International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 2024)
Multi-Source Encapsulation With Guaranteed Convergence Using Minimalist Robots
Himani Sinhmar, Hadas Kress-Gazit
Distributed Autonomous Robotic Systems (DARS 2024)
Microscopic, continuum, compliant, and electronically configurable metasheet robots
Qingkun Liu*, Wei Wang*, Himani Sinhmar, Itay Griniasty, Jason Z. Kim, et al.
Nature Materials, 2024
Design and Control of Microscopic Robot Sheet
Himani Sinhmar, Itay Griniasty, Qingkun Liu, Wei Wang, Itai Cohen, Hadas Kress-Gazit
ICRA 2024 Workshop
Motion Planning and Control with Multi-Stage Construction of Invariant Sets
Marcus Greiff, Stefano Di Cairano, Himani Sinhmar
US Patent, Pending,Filed March 2024
2023
Guaranteed Encapsulation of Targets with Unknown Motion by a Minimalist Robotic Swarm
Himani Sinhmar, Hadas Kress-Gazit
IEEE Transactions on Robotics (TRO), 2023
2022
Decentralized Control of Minimalistic Robotic Swarms For Guaranteed Target Encapsulation
Himani Sinhmar, Hadas Kress-Gazit
IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2022)
Consensus of networked double integrator systems under sensor bias
Pallavi Sinha, Srikant Sukumar, Himani Sinhmar
International Journal of Adaptive Control and Signal Processing, November 2022
Earlier
Distributed model independent algorithm for spacecraft synchronization under relative measurement bias
Himani Sinhmar, Srikant Sukumar
5th CEAS Conference on Guidance, Navigation and Control
Relative Autonomous Navigation Without Communication Between Spacecraft Using Line of Sight Measurements
Himani Sinhmar, Vinod Kumar
8th IEEE/CSAA GNC Conference, Xiamen, China, 2018
Direct Theoretical Approach to Jet Propulsion Principles based on Pressure Variation inside the Engine
Himani Sinhmar, Pallavi Rastogi, Shripad P. Mahulikar