Max Robotics — Global Service Robot Directory + US Certification

About

Chitra R. Karanam is a pioneering researcher in the intersection of robotics, radio-frequency (RF) sensing, and wireless communications, with a primary focus on through-wall imaging and autonomous navigation. Her most influential work, "3D through-wall imaging with unmanned aerial vehicles using wifi" (73 citations), introduced a groundbreaking method for reconstructing unknown indoor environments by having UAVs collect WiFi RSSI measurements from outside the area of interest—eliminating the need for internal sensors. She further advanced the field with her work on magnitude-based angle-of-arrival estimation (63 citations), which enables localization and target tracking using only received signal power, bypassing the traditional requirement for phase information. Karanam's research has fundamentally shifted how robotic arrays can be used for adaptive near-field imaging and wireless channel prediction, demonstrating that unmanned vehicles can synthesize flexible, informative sensor configurations. Her contributions have broad implications for search-and-rescue operations, surveillance, and smart environment mapping, establishing her as a leading voice in non-line-of-sight sensing and autonomous RF perception.