Gaurav S. Sukhatme
Gaurav S. Sukhatme studies networked and learning robots, including shared work on environmental sensing and robot coordination. He earned an engineering degree from IIT Bombay in 1991, a master’s from USC in 1993 and a doctorate from USC in 1997. His doctoral dissertation concerned evaluating autonomous mobile robots, with George Bekey as adviser. Sukhatme chaired USC’s Computer Science Department from July 2012 to June 2017. His executive vice dean role began in July 2017, with leave from 2020 to 2022, and his School of Advanced Computing director role began in February 2024.
- Works
- 771
- Citations
- 28,396
- h-index
- 84
Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 14 October 2026.
Timeline
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1991–1997
Training and autonomous robot evaluation
Sukhatme earned an engineering degree from IIT Bombay in 1991, a master’s from USC in 1993 and a doctorate from USC in 1997. His doctoral dissertation concerned evaluating autonomous mobile robots, with George Bekey as adviser.
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2000–2002
Building a robotics laboratory
He founded and directed the Robotic Embedded Systems Laboratory beginning in September 2000. He became co-director of USC’s Robotics Research Laboratory in September 2002. His research program covers networked robots, learning robots and field robotics.
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2014–2015
Sensing and planning in the field
His shared 2014 publications include adaptive path planning for tracking ocean fronts with an autonomous underwater vehicle and cooperative target tracking with onboard sensing. A shared 2015 paper studied formation changes for adaptive environmental sampling. They are part of his field robotics program.
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2012–2024
Academic leadership
Sukhatme chaired USC’s Computer Science Department from July 2012 to June 2017. His executive vice dean role began in July 2017, with leave from 2020 to 2022, and his School of Advanced Computing director role began in February 2024.
Sources and credits
Photo: viterbi.usc.edu; creator not stated. License: Not stated by source. Source: viterbi.usc.edu. Cropped to a square and resized. Ask us to remove or replace this photo.