Varun Murali

I am currently an assistant professor at Texas A&M University - College Station in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, where I work on hierarchical semantic mapping, planning, and tasking for robots operating in real-world environments. Previously, I was a postdoctoral researcher at the GRASP laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania supervised by Prof. Vijay Kumar. I received my PhD in Aeronautics and Astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology advised by Prof. Sertac Karaman. My research focuses on developing computationally efficient algorithms that enable robots to perform complex, under-specified tasks in dynamic and unstructured settings. I am particularly interested in designing general-purpose autonomy algorithms that integrate perception-action loops to improve decision-making and adaptability.

In past work, I have explored the synergistic connections between perception and planning for autonomous navigation, developing methods for reasoning about semantic affordances, improving robust feature matching for localization and mapping, and integrating perception-aware planning techniques to enhance robot navigation in challenging environments. Additionally, I am exploring how foundation models and large language models can be leveraged to create task representations that allow robots to understand and execute high-level instructions while maintaining situational awareness.

Looking ahead, I aim to advance research in hierarchical perception-action frameworks that enhance robotic decision-making and adaptability. I am particularly interested in the co-design of hardware and software solutions for size, weight, and power-constrained robots, as well as developing rule-based frameworks for safe and explainable robotic behavior.