Rajnikant Sharma

Brigham Young University, United States Air Force Academy, The University of Texas at San Antonio, University of Cincinnati

Papers

Total Citations

164

H-Index

About

Rajnikant Sharma is a leading researcher in autonomous robotics, with a primary focus on cooperative localization, multi-robot systems, and vision-based navigation. His most influential work addresses the fundamental challenge of bearing-only cooperative localization, where robots estimate their positions using only angular measurements from cameras. In his seminal 2011 paper (91 citations), Sharma established a critical link between graph theory and observability, proving that the connectivity and structure of robot communication networks directly determine whether a system can be accurately localized. This foundational insight has shaped subsequent research in multi-robot coordination. He further advanced the field by developing reactive, vision-based obstacle avoidance techniques for unmanned ground vehicles operating without GPS, and by creating a low-cost, open-source platform for full-sized automated vehicle research using ROS. His 2013 work on bearing-only cooperative localization (50 citations) and his comprehensive 2011 dissertation on path planning for ground and aerial robots demonstrate his sustained contributions to enabling reliable navigation in GPS-denied environments. Sharma’s research continues to impact the development of practical, sensor-limited autonomous systems.