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About

Akhil Kandhari is a robotics researcher whose work centers on biologically inspired soft robotics, with a particular focus on earthworm-like peristaltic locomotion systems. Drawing inspiration from the elegant mechanics of earthworm movement, Kandhari has made significant contributions to understanding how worm-like robots can navigate complex, confined, and unstructured environments — with direct implications for search and rescue, pipe inspection, and minimally invasive medical procedures. His most influential work, "Peristaltic Locomotion of a Modular Mesh-Based Worm Robot" (2015, 62 citations), established foundational principles for coordinating soft, compliant robotic segments despite real-world imprecision and nonlinearities. Building on this, Kandhari developed comprehensive analytical frameworks for optimizing locomotion velocity and energy efficiency, advanced fabric-based soft robot designs, and explored the nuanced geometry of turning maneuvers using non-periodic wave patterns. His research also bridges theoretical modeling and practical implementation, incorporating distributed sensing, slip reduction strategies, and RRT-based path planning to produce more capable and autonomous systems. With over 290 cumulative citations across ten papers, Kandhari has established himself as a productive voice in the soft robotics community, offering both rigorous mathematical models and novel hardware demonstrations that meaningfully advance the field's understanding of worm-inspired robotic locomotion.