Karthik Elamvazhuthi
Arizona State University, University of California, Los Angeles
Papers
17
Total Citations
279
H-Index
8
About
Karthik Elamvazhuthi is a robotics and control theorist whose research sits at the intersection of stochastic systems, mean-field theory, and multi-robot coordination. His work focuses primarily on the analysis and design of control strategies for large-scale robotic swarms, addressing fundamental challenges in decentralized autonomy where individual robots lack localization, communication, or centralized coordination. Elamvazhuthi's most influential contribution is his 2019 survey on mean-field models in swarm robotics (100 citations), which systematically consolidates how fluid approximations—using ordinary and partial differential equations—can guide swarm behavior at scale. His earlier work on optimal control of stochastic coverage strategies (2015, 45 citations) demonstrated that resource-constrained swarms could achieve sophisticated task allocation through probabilistic policies alone. He further advanced the field by developing decentralized density-feedback laws rooted in continuous-time Markov chain models, enabling swarms to converge to target spatial distributions without global information (2017, 33 citations). His research extends to herding problems using single leader agents, PDE-based formation control, and Fokker-Planck controllability, revealing deep mathematical structure underlying swarm behavior. Collectively, his work has garnered over 265 citations, establishing him as a rigorous contributor to the theoretical foundations of scalable, autonomous multi-robot systems.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
- 1Mean-field models in swarm robotics: a survey100 citations · 2019
- 2Optimal control of stochastic coverage strategies for robotic swarms45 citations · 2015
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- 7Nonlinear Generalizations of Diffusion-Based Coverage by Robotic Swarms10 citations · 2018
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