Alireza Ramezani

Assistant Professor,  Electrical and Computer Engineering

Contact

Office

  • 617.373.4027

Related Links

Research Focus

Design and development of robots with nontrivial morphologies; Analysis and closed-loop feedback design of nonlinear systems; Robot locomotion (legged & fluidic-based); Robotics-inspired biology

Education

  • PhD, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 2014

Honors & Awards

Two cover articles of Science (Robotics) Magazine

One Science Article in the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Science Magazine Altmetric

Research highlights at Nature

Winner of 2022 NASA’s Game Changing Program Award

Winner of 2020 NASA’s Game Changing Program Award

Recipient of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) Faculty Research Program Position (Summer 2022)

Professional Affiliations

  • American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
  • Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
  • American Society of Mechanical Engineers(ASME)
  • Climbing and Walking Robots Association (CLAWAR)

Research Overview

Design and development of robots with nontrivial morphologies; Analysis and closed-loop feedback design of nonlinear systems; Robot locomotion (legged & fluidic-based); Robotics-inspired biology

SiliconSynapse Lab

At “SiliconSynapse Lab”, we design bio-inspired robots, i.e., we are inspired by biology. Our works reside at the intersection of control theory and robotics, the intersection of theory and experiment. That said, the names ‘’Silicon’’ and ‘’Synapse’’ carried by the lab’s name are the fundamental components of the sensory feedback chains in robots and biological systems.

SiliconSynapse Lab

Selected Research Projects

Department Research Areas

Selected Publications

  • E. Sihite, A. Ramezani, ”Enforcing nonholonomic constraints in Aerobat, a roosting flapping wing model,” Conference on Decision and Control (CDC), Jeju Island, Republic of Korea, December 8-11, 2020.
  • E. Sihite, P. Kelly, A. Ramezani, ”Computational Structure Design of a Bio-inspired Armwing Mechanism,” IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L), 2020. Also accepted in IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Las Vegas, NV, October 25-29, 2020
  • P. Dangol, A. Ramezani, N. Jalili, ”Performance satisfaction in Midget, a thruster-assisted bipedal robot,” American Control Conference (ACC), Denver, CO, July 1-3, 2020.
  • A. Ramezani, ”Towards flapping flight upside-down landing through differential manipulation of inertial dynamics,” Proc. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Paris, France, May 31 to June 4, 2020.
  • P. Dangol, A. Ramezani, ”Performance and Robustness Satisfaction in a Thruster-assisted Legged Robot,” International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC), Berlin, Germany, July 12-17, 2020.
  • A. C. B. de Oliveira, A. Ramezani, ”Thruster-assisted Center Manifold Shaping in Bipedal Legged Locomotion,” International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics (AIM), Boston, MA, July 6-10, 2020.
  • A. Ramezani, S.U. Ahmed, J.E. Hoff, S.J. Chung, S. Hutchinson, Describing aerial locomotion of an Articulated MAV with Stable Periodic Orbits, Biomimetic and Biohybrid Systems: The 6th Int’l. Conference on Biomimetic and Biohybrid Systems, Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence, 2017, 394-405
  • S.U. Ahmed, A. Ramezani, S.J. Chung, S. Hutchinson, From Rousettus Aegyptiacus Landing to Robotic Landing: Regulation of CG-CP Distance Using a Nonlinear Closed-Loop Feedback, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2017, 3560-3567
  • A. Ramezani, S.J. Chung, S. Hutchinson, A Biomimetic Robotic Platform to Study Flight Specializations of Bats, Science (Robotics-AAAS), 2(3), 2017
  • J.E. Hoff, A. Ramezani, S.J. Chung, S. Hutchinson, Synergistic Design of a Bio-Inspired Micro Aerial Vehicle with Articulated Wings, Robotics Science and Systems Conference (RSS), 2016
  • A. Ramezani, X. Shi, S.J. Chung, S. Hutchinson, Bat Bot (B2), a Biologically Inspired Flying Machine, Proc. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2016, 3219-3226
  • A. Ramezani, J. Hurst, K.A. Hamed, J.W. Grizzle, Performance Analysis and Feedback Control of Atrias, a 3D Bipedal Robot, ASME Journal of Dynamic Systems Measurement and Control, 136(2), 2014, 21012
  • H.W. Park, A. Ramezani, J.W. Grizzle, A Finite State Machine for Accommodating Unexpected Large Ground Height Variations in Bipedal Robot Walking, IEEE Transactions on Robotics,29(2), 2013, 331-345

In the Media

Feb 24, 2023

US Students’ ‘Big Idea’ Could Help NASA Explore the Moon

A Northeastern University student team, who won the 2022 NASA BIG IDEA Competition for their COBRA robot, was featured in the VOA News article “US Students’ ‘Big Idea’ Could Help NASA Explore the Moon.”

In the Media

Feb 16, 2023

Rovers Are So Yesterday. It’s Time to Send a Snakebot to Space

A Northeastern University student team, who won the 2022 NASA BIG IDEA Competition, was featured in the Wired article “Rovers Are So Yesterday. It’s Time to Send a Snakebot to Space.”

In the Media

Dec 15, 2022

‘Snakes’ on the moon? These helpers could soon join our lunar mission.

The engineering students that created the snake-like robot, Crater Observing Bio-inspired Rolling Articulator (COBRA), were featured in the National Geographic article “‘Snakes’ on the moon? These helpers could soon join our lunar mission.”

Student Groups

Nov 18, 2022

NU Wins 1st Place at 2022 NASA BIG IDEA Competition

A Northeastern University student team won the prestigious Artemis Award, the top honor at NASA’s 2022 Breakthrough, Innovative and Game-changing (BIG) Idea Challenge for their COBRA: Crater Observing Bio-inspired Rolling Articulator.

Faculty

Oct 07, 2022

Announcing Fall 2022 PEAK Experiences Awardees

Several engineering students and science students mentored by COE faculty are recipients of Northeastern’s Fall 2022 PEAK Experiences Awards. This extraordinary group of students is taking on a range of exciting projects, from exploring axolotl limb regeneration to building a snake-inspired robot to understanding accessibility on Broadway. ASCENT AWARDS Justin Almendral COE’24, “Wearable Art” Mentor: […]

Alireza Ramezani

Faculty

Jul 01, 2022

Ramezani Selected for JPL Faculty Fellowship Research Program

ECE Assistant Professor Alireza Ramezani was selected as a participant in the Faculty Fellowship Research Program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California.

Alireza Ramezani

Faculty

May 26, 2022

Designing a Bat-Inspired Robot for Operation in Confined Spaces

ECE Assistant Professor Alireza Ramezani, in collaboration with Khoury Assistant Professor Lawson Wong and Koushil Sreenath from the University of California-Berkeley, is leading a $1M NSF grant for “Design, Flight Control, and Autonomous Navigation of Bioinspired Morphing Micro Aerial Vehicles for Operation in Confined Spaces.”

Undergraduate

May 18, 2022

Announcing Summer 2022 PEAK Experiences Awardees

Several engineering students and science students mentored by COE faculty are recipients of Northeastern’s Summer 2022 PEAK Experiences Awards.

Competitions

Mar 14, 2022

SEDS Student Group Finalist in NASA BIG Idea Challenge for Innovative Robot Snake Design

A Northeastern University student team, advised by Assistant Professor Alireza Ramezani, electrical and computer engineering, was one of seven university teams selected as finalists in the 2022 NASA’s BIG Idea Challenge. The team’s project, titled “COBRA: Crater Observing Bio-inspired Rolling Articulator,” received $174K in funds to further develop and test the technologies over the next 10 months. COBRA is a snake-like design for their robot which will allow it to traverse the extreme terrains on the moon’s surface.

Students

Jun 07, 2021

Summer 2021 PEAK Experiences Awardees

Congratulations to the COE student recipients of the Summer 2021 PEAK Experiences Awards. The PEAK Experiences Awards are a progressively structured sequence of opportunities designed to support learners as they continue climbing to new heights of achievement in undergraduate research and creative endeavor throughout their Northeastern journeys. BASE CAMP AWARDS Ana Salichs, E’22, “Colorimetric Assays […]

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