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Robotics and Physical Intelligence

Rooted in MIT-era work on energy- and risk-optimal path planning under stochastic, dynamic flows — including a 2022 US patent on route determination in uncertain environments — this pillar covers GPU-accelerated planners, transformer-based onboard routing, pursuit-evasion games, and real-time autonomous vehicle deployments (REMUS AUVs, ship interception, fleet routing). It is the historical root of, and forward trajectory into, Physical AI — now the lab’s primary research focus: World Models, Vision-Language-Action models, Vision-Language Models, LLMs, and Flow Models, applied to extend decades of planning-under-uncertainty work into general-purpose robotics.

Publications in this pillar

1. Physics-Guided Encoder-Decoder Transformers for Path Planning of Autonomous Marine Vehicles

   Rohit Chowdhury, Deepak N. Subramani · Machine Learning, 115(3), 48 · 2026

2. Intelligent Onboard Routing in Stochastic Dynamic Environments using Transformers

   Chowdhury, R., Murugan, R., Subramani, D. · Proceedings of the 2023 International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, pp. 1688-1696 · 2023 ★ CORE2023 A* Ranking. Acceptance Rate = 23%

3. Optimal Path Planning of Autonomous Marine Vehicles in Stochastic Dynamic Ocean Flows using a GPU-Accelerated Algorithm

   R. Chowdhury, D. N. Subramani · IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering · 2022

4. GPU-Accelerated Multi-Objective Optimal Planning in Stochastic Dynamic Environments

   Chowdhury, R., Navsalkar, A., Subramani, D. · Journal of Marine Science and Engineering, 10(4), p.533 · 2022

5. Route determination in dynamic and uncertain environments

   Lermusiaux, Pierre, Deepak Narayanan Subramani, Chinmay Kulkarni, Patrick Haley · U.S. Patent 11,435,199, issued September 6, 2022 · 2022

6. Physics-Driven Machine Learning for Time-Optimal Path Planning in Stochastic Dynamic Flows

   Chowdhury, R., D. N. Subramani · DDDAS 2020. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 12312. Springer, Cham · 2020

7. Graph-Search and Differential Equations for Time-Optimal Vessel Route Planning in Dynamic Ocean Waves

   G. Mannarini, D. N. Subramani, P. F. J. Lermusiaux, N. Pinardi · IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems · 2019

8. Risk Optimal Path Planning in Stochastic Dynamic Environments

   Subramani, D.N., P.F.J. Lermusiaux · Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering, Volume 353, 391-415 · 2019

9. Stochastic Time Optimal Path Planning in Uncertain, Strong, and Dynamic Flows

   Subramani, D.N., Q.J. Wei, P.F.J. Lermusiaux · Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering, 333, 218-237 · 2018

10. Time-Optimal Multi-Waypoint Mission Planning in Dynamic Environments

    Ferris, D.L., D.N. Subramani, C.S. Kulkarni, P.F.J. Lermusiaux · MTS/IEEE Oceans '18 Charleston, pp 1-8 · 2018

11. Clustering of Massive Ensemble of Vehicle Trajectories in Strong, Dynamic and Uncertain Ocean Flows

    Dutt, A., D.N. Subramani, C.S. Kulkarni, P.F.J. Lermusiaux · MTS/IEEE Oceans '18 Charleston, pp 1-8 · 2018

12. Probabilistic Risk-Optimal Path Planning and Sampling in Uncertain Environments

    Subramani, D. N., Lermusiaux, P. F. · 2018 Ocean Sciences Meeting, AGU · 2018

13. A Future for Intelligent Autonomous Ocean Observing Systems

    Lermusiaux, P.F.J., D.N. Subramani, J. Lin, C.S. Kulkarni, A. Gupta, A. Dutt, T. Lolla, P.J. Haley Jr., W.H. Ali, C. Mirabito, S. Jana · The Sea Vol. 17: The Science of Ocean Prediction, Special Issue of J. Marine Res., 75, 765–813 · 2017

14. Energy-optimal path planning in the coastal ocean

    Subramani, D. N., P. J. Haley, Jr., P. F. J. Lermusiaux · Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 122, 3981–4003 · 2017

15. Multiple-Pursuit/One-Evader Pursuit Evasion Game in Dynamical Flow Fields

    Sun, W., P. Tsiotras, T. Lolla, D.N. Subramani, P.F.J. Lermusiaux · Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics · 2017

16. Time-Optimal Path Planning: Real-Time Sea Exercises

    Subramani, D. N., P. F. J. Lermusiaux, P.J. Haley, Jr., C. Mirabito, S. Jana, C. S. Kulkarni, A. Girard, D. Wickman, J. Edwards, J. Smith · Oceans '17 MTS/IEEE Aberdeen · 2017

17. Autonomy for Surface Ship Interception

    Mirabito, C., D.N. Subramani, T. Lolla, P.J. Haley, Jr., A. Jain, P.F.J. Lermusiaux, C. Li, D.K.P. Yue, Y. Liu, F.S. Hover, N. Pulsone, J. Edwards, K.E. Railey, G. Shaw · Oceans '17 MTS/IEEE Aberdeen · 2017

18. Pursuit-Evasion Games in Dynamic Flow Fields via Reachability Set Analysis

    Sun, W., P. Tsiotras, T. Lolla, D. N. Subramani, P. F. J. Lermusiaux · 2017 American Control Conference, Seattle, WA, pp. 4595-4600 · 2017

19. Data-driven Learning and Modeling of AUV Operational Characteristics for Optimal Path Planning

    Edwards, J., J. Smith, A. Girard, D. Wickman, P.F.J. Lermusiaux, D.N. Subramani, P.J. Haley, Jr., C. Mirabito, C.S. Kulkarni, S. Jana · Oceans '17 MTS/IEEE Aberdeen · 2017

20. Energy Optimal Path Planning: Integrating Coastal Ocean Modelling with Optimal Control

    Subramani, D. N., Haley Jr, P. J., Lermusiaux, P. F. · American Geophysical Union Ocean Science Meeting 2016, PO12A-07 · 2016

21. A stochastic optimization method for energy-based path planning

    Subramani, D.N., T. Lolla, P.J. Haley, P.F.J Lermusiaux · Dynamic Data-Driven Environmental System Science, Vol. 8964, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Springer, pp. 347-358 · 2015

All Robotics and Physical Intelligence publications on the Publications page →