I am a second-year PhD student at LAAS-CNRS and part of the TRAIL MSCA project, where I work on socially aware robot navigation.
My research focuses on improving how robots move and interact around people in dynamic environments, with an emphasis on making their behavior more natural and legible for better Human-Robot Interaction.
I am supervised by Dr. Rachid Alami.
Last Updated : Apr 2026
Prior to this, I worked with Dr. Leonardo Guevara, Dr. Marc Hanheide during my MSc, and with Dr. Sariah Mghames, Dr. Badri Narayanan during my Bachelors. I was also part of Agri-OpenCore project, contributing to an open-source software stack for mobile robots.
More broadly, my interests lie at the intersection of psychology, computer science, and control systems, with a focus on making robots more understandable to humans, and enabling robots to better understand humans.
This site gives an overview of my research, projects, and professional journey.
If your research interests or projects align with mine, I would be happy to connect and explore potential collaborations.
Email : contact@hariharan20.com (feel free to reach out)
Validating Virtual Reality for Multimodal Human-Robot Interaction in Socially Aware Robot Navigation - (Submitted, Under Review)
Hariharan Arunachalam, Phani Teja Singamaneni, Rachid Alami
A Retrieval Augmented Generation Approach for Planning on General Purpose Service Robots - ARTIIS 2025 [paper] [code]
Eden Attenborough, Hariharan Arunachalam, Juan Pablo Vásconez, Francesco Del Duchetto, Riccardo Polvara, Leonardo Guevara
Assessing Human Cooperation for Enhancing Social Robot Navigation - ICRA Workshop 2025 - Advances in Social Navigation - Poster Presentation [paper] [poster]
Hariharan Arunachalam, Phani Teja Singamaneni, Rachid Alami
Resilient Timed Elastic Band Planner for Collision-Free Navigation in Unknown Environments - Journal of Field Robotics 2025 [paper]
Geesara Kulathunga, Abdurrahman Yilmaz, Zhuoling Huang, Ibrahim Hroob, Hariharan Arunachalam, Leonardo Guevara, Alexandr Klimchik, Grzegorz Cielniak, Marc Hanheide
Runtime Anomaly Monitoring of Human Perception Models for Robotic Systems - IEEE CASE 2024 [paper] [code]
Hariharan Arunachalam, Zhuoling Huang, Marc hanheide, Leonardo Guevara
Robot-assisted fruit harvesting: an ergonomics user study - IEEE CASE 2024 [paper]
Leonardo Guevara, Prabuddhi Wariyapperuma, Hariharan Arunachalam, Juan Vasconez, Marc Hanheide, Elizabeth Sklar
Learning Manipulation Tasks in Dynamic and Shared 3D Spaces - Arxiv [paper] [code]
Hariharan Arunachalam, Sariah Mghames, Marc Hanheide
PhD (Computer Science and Robotics) - INSA Toulouse, France (2024 - Present)
MSc by Research (Computer Science) - University of Lincoln, United Kingdom (2023 - 2024) [Link to Thesis]
B.Tech (Hons.) (Mechatronics Engineering) - SASTRA University, India (2018 - 2022) [Link to Thesis]
I am extremely grateful for all the scholarships throughout my journey
Marie Skłodowska-Curie Doctoral Fellowship - (2024 - Present)
Fellowship support during my PhD studies at CNRS
University of Lincoln Studentship - (2023 - 2024)
Funded MSc scholarship at University of Lincoln (Thanks to the sponsor - Berry Garden Growers Ltd)
Desh-Videsh Scholarship (2022)
Funded research exchange program from SASTRA University for research internship at University of Lincoln
Dean's Merit List - 10% (2020)
Awarded to top 10% performing students at SASTRA University
Dean's Merit List - 10% (2019)
Awarded to top 10% performing students at SASTRA University
Visiting PhD Student - Cognitive Robotics Lab, University of Manchester, UK (2025)
Visiting Research Student - Honda Research Institute, Offenbach am main, Germany (Feb 2025 - Mar2025)
Research Assistant (Part-time) - L-CAS, University of Lincoln, Lincoln, UK(June 2023 - May 2024)
Data Scientist 1 - Augur Ai Pvt Ltd, Trichy, India (Aug 2022 - Feb 2023)
Research Intern (Part-time) - L-CAS, University of Lincoln, Lincoln, UK (June 2021 - June 2022)
Winter Research Intern (Part-time) - CIR, Indian Institute of Information Technology, Allahabad, India (Nov 2020 - Jan 2021)
AI Developer Intern (Part-time) - WiselyWise Pvt Ltd, India (Oct 2020 - Dec 2020)
Fête de la science (Oct 2025) - LAAS-CNRS - Science demos for young students
Open day volunteer (2023 - 2024) - Uni. of Lincoln - Robot demos for incoming students
Lincolnshire Show 2023 (June 2023) - Lincoln, England, Uk - Represented Uni. of Lincoln
Social Volunteer (2019) - Dr.Abdul kalam Welfare Trust, India - Volunteered with an NGO for Social Causes
UPC Robotics & AI Summer School (2022) - Participant
