Researcher

Debasish Ghose

Debasish Ghose is an aerospace and robotics researcher whose work spans autonomous guidance, multi-agent systems, and swarm optimization. He earned an electrical-engineering BSc at REC Rourkela in 1982, an ME at IISc in 1984, and a PhD there in 1990, then joined IISc's Aerospace Engineering department. With Animesh Chakravarthy, he published a collision-cone approach to obstacle avoidance in 1998; he later visited UCLA and became an IISc professor. With Krishnanand, he introduced Glowworm Swarm Optimization for multimodal search in 2005 and became a Fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering in 2006. He chaired IISc Aerospace Engineering from 2012 to 2015 and, as of October 2026, is an honorary professor in the department.

Works
552
Citations
10,772
h-index
49

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 19 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. 1982–1993

    Engineering degrees and teaching

    He earns a BSc in electrical engineering at REC Rourkela in 1982, an ME in electrical engineering at IISc in 1984, and a PhD at IISc in 1990. He joins IISc's Department of Aerospace Engineering as a lecturer from 1990 to 1993.

  2. 1998

    The collision-cone approach

    With Animesh Chakravarthy, he publishes a paper on a collision-cone approach to obstacle avoidance in a dynamic environment in 1998.

  3. 1999–2003

    Professor at IISc

    He serves as visiting faculty in UCLA's Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering in 1999–2000, 2001 and 2002, then becomes a professor in IISc's Department of Aerospace Engineering in 2003. His research covers guidance and control of autonomous vehicles, robotics, multi-agent systems and mobile robotics.

  4. 2005

    Glowworm swarm optimization

    With Krishnanand, he introduces Glowworm Swarm Optimization, a method that locates multiple optima of multimodal functions, in 2005.

  5. 2006

    An INAE fellowship

    He is elected a Fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering in 2006.

  6. 2012–2015

    Chair of Aerospace Engineering

    He chairs IISc's Department of Aerospace Engineering from 2012 to 2015.

  7. As of October 2026

    Honorary professor at IISc

    As of October 2026, he is an honorary professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at IISc.

Career

  1. Since 1990Indian Institute of ScienceLecturer, Professor
  2. 2023–2025Robert Bosch
  3. 2022–2026Høyskolen Kristiania
  4. 1999–2002University of California, Los AngelesVisiting faculty
  5. 1987–1990Indian Institute of Science Bangalore

Education

  1. 1990Indian Institute of SciencePhD
  2. 1984Indian Institute of ScienceME in electrical engineering
  3. 1982Regional Engineering College, RourkelaBSc in electrical engineering

Most-cited works

  1. Obstacle avoidance in a dynamic environment: a collision cone approach1998 · IEEE Transactions on Systems Man and Cybernetics - Part A Systems and Humans · 556 citations
  2. Glowworm swarm optimization for simultaneous capture of multiple local optima of multimodal functions2008 · Swarm Intelligence · 448 citations
  3. Scheduling Divisible Loads in Parallel and Distributed Systems1996 · IEEE Computer Society Press eBooks · 416 citations
  4. Nonsingular Terminal Sliding Mode Guidance with Impact Angle Constraints2014 · Journal of Guidance Control and Dynamics · 385 citations
  5. Detection of multiple source locations using a glowworm metaphor with applications to collective robotics2005 · IEEE Swarm Intelligence Symposium · 355 citations

Sources and credits

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  1. Debasish Ghose – Department of Aerospace Engineering aero.iisc.ac.in. Checked 19 October 2026.
  2. Debasish Ghose - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org. Checked 19 October 2026.
  3. Glowworm swarm optimization | IEEE Technology Navigator technav.ieee.org. Checked 19 October 2026.
  4. Expert Profile View - Indian National Academy of Engineering inae.in. Checked 19 October 2026.
  5. Prof. Debasish Ghose (Indian Institute of Science) – Indian Control Conference controlsociety.org. Checked 19 October 2026.