PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Abhisesh Silwal

Also known as Abhi Silwal

Abhisesh Silwal is a systems scientist at Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute who develops robots and AI for agriculture. He earned a master's degree at the Asian Institute of Technology in 2012 and a PhD at Washington State University in 2016. His apple harvesting work in 2017 combined machine vision and a robot arm to pick fruit, and he coauthored Bumblebee, an autonomous vine pruning robot, in 2021. His later papers addressed robot learning through SplatSim in 2024, pepper harvesting from human demonstrations in 2025, and apple disease mapping in 2026. At CMU's Field Robotics Center, he co-leads agricultural robotics research.

Works
34
Citations
1,001
h-index
14

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 27 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. 2012–2016

    Engineering degrees in Asia and Washington

    After undergraduate study in electrical engineering, he earns a master's degree in mechatronics engineering at the Asian Institute of Technology in 2012. He completes his PhD at Washington State University in 2016.

  2. 2017

    A robotic apple harvester

    In 2017, he coauthors Design, integration, and field evaluation of a robotic apple harvester, which combines machine vision with a robot arm and picks 127 of 150 attempted apples in a Washington State orchard. With Manoj Karkee as his advisor, he receives second place in the doctoral category of the Boyd-Scott Graduate Research Awards in 2017 for a presentation on the harvester.

  3. December 2021

    Bumblebee prunes grapevines

    In December 2021, he coauthors Bumblebee: A Path Towards Fully Autonomous Robotic Vine Pruning. The robot combines cameras, perception algorithms, a robot arm, and a ground vehicle to prune dormant grapevines; field tests achieve 87% pruning accuracy at 213 seconds per vine.

  4. By 2024

    Senior project scientist at CMU

    By May 2024, he works as a senior project scientist at the Field Robotics Center in Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute, following a postdoctoral fellowship at CMU. His research combines perception, navigation, manipulation, and AI to build agricultural robots.

  5. September 2024

    SplatSim transfers robot skills

    In September 2024, he coauthors SplatSim, a framework that uses Gaussian splatting to generate realistic images for training robot manipulation policies in simulation. Policies transferred to real robots without additional training achieve an average success rate of 86.25% in the team's experiments.

  6. 2025

    Learning to harvest peppers

    In 2025, he publishes Autonomous Robotic Pepper Harvesting: Imitation Learning in Unstructured Agricultural Environments with Chung Hee Kim and George Kantor in IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters. The team uses 300 human demonstrations collected with a handheld shear-gripper to train a robot to harvest peppers outdoors.

  7. March 2026

    Mapping disease in apple trees

    In March 2026, he coauthors Active Robotic Perception for Disease Detection and Mapping in Apple Trees. The system combines stereo cameras, image segmentation, and 3D mapping to locate fire blight symptoms, with experiments on a fabricated laboratory tree and simulated trees.

  8. As of October 2026

    Systems scientist at CMU

    As of October 2026, he is a systems scientist in Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute, associated with the Field Robotics Center and FARM Lab. He co-leads agricultural robotics research at the Field Robotics Center, developing robots and AI for complex outdoor environments in agriculture.

Career

  1. NowCarnegie Mellon UniversityPostdoctoral Fellow

Education

  1. 2016Washington State UniversityPhD
  2. 2012Asian Institute of TechnologyMaster's degree in mechatronics engineering

From the biography and OpenAlex affiliations (the years of papers that list the organization), so some years are approximate.

Colleagues

People with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

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  1. Abhisesh Silwal, P.h.D abhisilwal.com. Checked 27 October 2026.
  2. Special Seminar - Robotics Institute Carnegie Mellon University ri.cmu.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.
  3. Design, integration, and field evaluation of a robotic apple harvester - Robotics Institute Carnegie Mellon University publications.ri.cmu.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.
  4. Biological Systems Engineering supports international meeting | Biological Systems Engineering | Washington State University bsyse.wsu.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.
  5. Bumblebee: A Path Towards Fully Autonomous Robotic Vine Pruning arxiv.org. Checked 27 October 2026.
  6. SplatSim: Zero-Shot Sim2Real Transfer of RGB Manipulation Policies Using Gaussian Splatting arxiv.org. Checked 27 October 2026.
  7. Abhisesh Silwal, P.h.D - Publication abhisilwal.com. Checked 27 October 2026.
  8. Autonomous Robotic Pepper Harvesting: Imitation Learning in Unstructured Agricultural Environments arxiv.org. Checked 27 October 2026.
  9. Active Robotic Perception for Disease Detection and Mapping in Apple Trees arxiv.org. Checked 27 October 2026.
  10. Abhisesh Silwal - The Robotics Institute - CMU ri.cmu.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.