About Me
I am a robotics researcher and engineer in the final stage of my PhD at TU Wien's Institute of Visual Computing and Human-Centered Technology. My research sits at the intersection of autonomous mobile robotics, haptic virtual reality, and reinforcement learning — building systems that put real robots in close physical interaction with people in large-scale immersive environments.
My main project is CoboDeck, a large-scale encountered-type haptic VR system that uses collaborative mobile robots to deliver physical sensations in free-walking virtual environments. I designed and built the full autonomy stack: localization, autonomous navigation, collaborative manipulation, RL-based idle positioning, safety monitoring, and multi-user coordination. Components have been presented at ACM SIGGRAPH Emerging Technologies, IEEE VR, and EuroHaptics; the complete system has been demonstrated at TU Wien to organizations including Austrian Airlines (AUA / Lufthansa Group). The Action-Origami Haptic End-Effector — an origami-inspired robotic gripper that simulates the haptic properties of elastic materials with dynamic stiffness — received the Best Project Award at ACM SIGGRAPH Emerging Technologies 2023 in Los Angeles.
My path to research was not a straight line. Before joining TU Wien, I spent seven years at Nativy Translations GmbH, ultimately as CTO, building a multilingual B2B SaaS platform that served enterprise clients including Siemens, REWE, Western Union, Heineken, and Do&Co. I left that role when it became clear the core business — multilingual content and translation — was being structurally disrupted by the rise of large language models and neural machine translation. Rather than staying in a market being commoditized by AI, I chose to redirect toward what had always drawn me: robotics, autonomous systems, and AI research. I carried the engineering leadership and production systems experience with me rather than leaving it behind — it is what makes the work I do now different from purely academic research.
My interest in robotics began during my undergraduate studies at Iran University of Science and Technology, where I joined the university's robotics team and competed in international RoboCup competitions. At RoboCup 2009 in Graz, my team placed 6th worldwide in Urban Search & Rescue — and that trip to Austria was the beginning of a longer journey. The research culture at European universities made a lasting impression, and I eventually moved to Vienna to pursue graduate studies and, later, the PhD I am completing now.
Alongside my research I teach courses in VR, ROS, and multimodal interfaces at TU Wien, supervise Bachelor and Master theses in robotics and autonomous systems, review for IEEE VR and IEEE Transactions on Haptics, and serve on the organizing committee for IEEE ICRA 2026 in Vienna.
Research & Projects
CoboDeck: Large-Scale Haptic VR System Using a Collaborative Mobile Robot SIGGRAPH Best Project Award 2023
A fully autonomous encountered-type haptic VR system enabling free-walking physical interaction in large virtual environments. Users receive haptic feedback from a mobile collaborative robot that autonomously tracks and anticipates their position. The system integrates a complete robotics stack: multi-modal localization (Qualisys motion capture, LiDAR, fiducial markers, VR inside-out tracking), autonomous navigation (ROS/ROS 2, TEB local planner, global planning), collaborative manipulation (UR10, MoveIt, VAL3), reinforcement learning-based idle positioning (NVIDIA Isaac Lab, Skrl, sim-to-real), real-time safety monitoring, and multi-user coordination. Demonstrated to industry partners including the Austrian Airlines (AUA / Lufthansa Group) training center at TU Wien.
Action-Origami Inspired Haptic End-Effector Best Project Award · ACM SIGGRAPH 2023
An origami-inspired robotic end-effector capable of simulating the haptic properties of elastic materials with dynamic stiffness. The mechanism uses paper origami structures combined with a robotic gripper to replicate the compression behaviour and force-feedback profile of real elastic objects — enabling users in VR to physically feel material properties that would otherwise be rendered only visually or acoustically. Presented and demonstrated live at ACM SIGGRAPH Emerging Technologies 2023 in Los Angeles, where it received the Best Project Award. A follow-up study on stiffness simulation was presented at IEEE VRW 2024.
Mobile Robot Idle Positioning using Deep Reinforcement Learning
A deep reinforcement learning framework for autonomous idle positioning of mobile encountered-type haptic robots in shared human-robot VR environments. The robot must continuously choose where to wait between interactions — far enough to be safe, close enough to respond instantly — while respecting dynamic safety constraints around moving users. Trained in NVIDIA Isaac Sim using Isaac Lab and the Skrl RL library, with sim-to-real transfer to ROS 1/2 on physical robots. Accepted at EuroHaptics 2026. An extended multi-user version is currently under review at Frontiers in VR.
Photogrammabot: Autonomous Indoor 3D Reconstruction Robot
An autonomous ROS-based robotic system for indoor photogrammetry and 3D reconstruction, commissioned by Illusion Walk for commercial deployment. The robot navigates large indoor spaces autonomously, captures high-coverage DSLR image sequences, and produces 3D point clouds and meshes for use in mixed reality applications. Deployed across multiple commercial sites including Athens and Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER). Built on TurtleBot 2 with Raspberry Pi 4B, using autonomous mapping, coverage path planning, and image acquisition scheduling.
HeXA: Haptic-enhanced XR Framework for Material-informed Architectural Design
An interdisciplinary framework integrating haptic robotic systems with extended reality for architectural design workflows. Enables designers to physically interact with virtual material samples through force-feedback robotic end-effectors in immersive environments — bridging the tactile gap between physical material libraries and digital design tools. Developed within the FWF SFB Advanced Computational Design project (TU Wien, TU Graz, University of Innsbruck). Published in the Journal of Building Engineering (Elsevier, 2025).
OpenClaw: Multi-Agent LLM Orchestration for Physical AI
A personal multi-agent orchestration system integrating cloud LLMs (Claude, GPT-4) and locally deployed models (Ollama) across two application domains: (1) Physical AI — bridging language models with robotic sensor streams and control interfaces, enabling language-driven robot task specification and feedback; (2) Research operations — autonomous discovery of public funding calls (Horizon Europe, FWF, FFG), matching them to research group competencies, and AI-assisted grant proposal drafting. Implements tool use, persistent memory, context routing, RAG pipelines, and multi-agent coordination. Technologies: Python, LangChain, Ollama, Claude API, OpenAI API.
Publications
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2026
Mobile Robot Idle Positioning in Large-scale multi-user VR Encountered-type Haptics using Deep Reinforcement Learning
Frontiers in VR/Haptics — under reviewUnder review -
2026
Mobile Robot Idle Positioning in Large-scale VR Encountered-type Haptics using Deep Reinforcement Learning
EuroHaptics 2026 -
2025
Safety for Mobile Encountered-Type Haptic Devices in Large-Scale Virtual Reality
Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 2025 — DOI: 10.3389/frvir.2025.1648019 -
2025
HeXA: Haptic-enhanced eXtended Reality Framework for Material-informed Architectural Design
Journal of Building Engineering, Elsevier, Vol. 108, Article 112707, 2025 — DOI: 10.1016/j.jobe.2025.112707 -
2024
Stiffness Simulation with Haptic Feedback Using Robotic Gripper and Paper Origami as End-Effector
IEEE VRW 2024, pp. 48–53 — DOI: 10.1109/VRW60960.2024.10536205 -
2023
Action-Origami Inspired Haptic Devices for Virtual Reality
Best Project Award
ACM SIGGRAPH Emerging Technologies 2023, Los Angeles — DOI: 10.1145/3588037.3595393 -
2023
CoboDeck: A Large-Scale Haptic VR System Using a Collaborative Mobile Robot
IEEE VR 2023, pp. 286–297 — DOI: 10.1109/VR52547.2023.10108410 -
2022
Photogrammabot: An Autonomous ROS-Based Mobile Photography Robot for Precise 3D Reconstruction and Mapping of Large Indoor Spaces for Mixed Reality
IEEE VRW 2022 — DOI: 10.1109/VRW52547.2022.9757663
Research Supervision & Consulting
Reinforcement Learning for Mobile Robot Positioning in XR
Co-Supervisor / Technical Consultant 2024 – 2025Co-supervised deep reinforcement learning-based autonomous positioning for mobile encountered-type haptic devices in immersive VR environments. Guided DRL pipeline design, reward engineering, policy optimization, and sim-to-real transfer. Consulted on human-aware navigation, safety-critical systems, and shared human-robot workspaces. Work with NVIDIA Isaac Sim, Isaac Lab, ROS 1/2, and Dockerized robotics infrastructure. Results accepted at EuroHaptics 2026.
Safe Position Control through Reinforcement Learning
Co-Supervisor / Technical Consultant 2024 – 2025Co-supervised a DRL-based safe positioning framework for an omnidirectional mobile robot in close human-robot interaction scenarios. Guided design and implementation of RL pipelines for autonomous robot behavior in shared human-robot workspaces. Supported simulation-to-real transfer, mobile robot control, and safety-aware autonomous behavior.
Autonomous Exploration with Boston Dynamics Spot
Co-Supervisor / Technical Consultant 2024Co-supervised frontier-based autonomous exploration and mapping using the Boston Dynamics Spot robotic platform. Guided implementation of SLAM, navigation, frontier detection, perception, and autonomous path planning pipelines. Provided support for ROS integration, navigation stack configuration, and real-time robotic systems.
3D SLAM Comparison and Evaluation for Mobile Robotics
Co-Supervisor / Technical Consultant 2024Co-supervised comparative evaluation of multiple 3D SLAM algorithms for mobile robotic systems. Provided expertise on SLAM, robotic perception, probabilistic state estimation, sensor fusion, and localization benchmarking. Supported development of pipelines for trajectory comparison, mapping quality analysis, runtime benchmarking, and robustness testing across algorithms.
Experience
TU Wien — Institute of Visual Computing and Human-Centered Technology
University Assistant / Robotics Researcher April 2022 – Present · Vienna, Austria- Lead development of CoboDeck — a large-scale encountered-type haptic VR system with a complete autonomous robotics stack.
- ROS 1/2 work covering MoveIt, navigation stack, TEB local planner, global planning, localization pipelines, hardware integration, and real-time robotic communication.
- Sensor fusion integrating Qualisys motion capture, fiducial marker localization, LiDAR-based navigation, VR inside-out tracking, and Azure Kinect perception.
- Developed and deployed ROS-based robotic stacks on single-board computers including Raspberry Pi, Odroid N2+, and NVIDIA Jetson Nano.
- Research focus: RL for robotics, safe autonomous systems, probabilistic state estimation, EKF localization, sim-to-real transfer, navigation in human-shared environments.
- Teaching: Virtual Reality in Game Engines (Unity, Unreal Engine 5), ROS, Multimodal Interfaces, Robotics Software Engineering, XR System Integration.
- Supervised Bachelor and Master theses in RL, robotics, autonomous systems, VR/XR, robot simulation, safety, and motion planning.
- Reviewer: IEEE VR, IEEE Transactions on Haptics (ToH), KAI conference.
TU Wien — SFB Advanced Computational Design
FWF Project Assistant / PhD Researcher May 2020 – March 2022 · Vienna, Austria- Researcher in the interdisciplinary FWF SFB project spanning TU Wien, TU Graz, and University of Innsbruck.
- Developed a large-scale ROS-based mobile robotic platform for encountered-type haptic interaction in VR.
- Worked on robotic system integration: omnidirectional mobile robots, collaborative manipulators, tracking systems, VR systems, real-time sensor fusion, and autonomous behavior coordination.
- Contributed to scientific publications, technical reports, project proposals, and interdisciplinary research collaboration.
Nativy Translations GmbH
Chief Technology Officer 2016 – 2020 · Vienna, Austria- Led engineering for a multilingual B2B SaaS translation platform serving enterprise clients including Siemens, REWE, RWE, Western Union, Heineken, and Do&Co.
- Built and managed onsite and offshore engineering teams covering backend, frontend, testing, deployment, and infrastructure.
- Redesigned platform architecture: distributed systems, cloud infrastructure, databases, APIs, scheduling systems, and workflow orchestration.
- Designed expert retrieval systems, information retrieval pipelines (Apache Lucene/Solr), high-performance scheduling, and CAT tools.
- Managed SDLC with SCRUM methodologies and supervised CI/CD on Microsoft Azure.
- Led technical communication with enterprise customers, partners, and stakeholders.
Nativy Translations GmbH
Lead Developer / Senior Full-Stack Developer 2013 – 2016 · Vienna, Austria- Refactored major platform components and redesigned database architecture.
- Introduced Apache Lucene, Apache Tika, Linq2SQL ORM, and AJAX-based UI architectures.
- Expanded API systems for external partner integration and CMS connectivity.
Various Companies — Iran
Software Engineer / Robotics Engineer 2004 – 2012- Worked across software engineering, robotics, embedded systems, industrial IT, and automation.
- Competed in international robotics competitions: RoboCup Urban Search & Rescue (1st place Iran Open 2009; 6th place worldwide, Graz 2009; RoboCup 2008, China).
Teaching
Courses taught at TU Wien as part of the University Assistant role at the Institute of Visual Computing and Human-Centered Technology.
- Virtual Reality in Game Engines — Unity and Unreal Engine 5; VR interaction design, XR system integration, real-time rendering for immersive environments
- ROS (Robot Operating System) — ROS 1 and ROS 2; robot hardware integration, navigation stack, sensor pipelines, robotic middleware
- Multimodal Interfaces — Haptic, visual, and auditory interaction modalities; human-computer and human-robot interaction design
- Robotics Software Engineering — Software architecture for robotic systems, safety, real-time constraints, system integration
- XR System Integration — Integrating VR/AR/MR systems with physical hardware, tracking, and robotic components
Education
Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien)
Dr. techn. (PhD) Candidate — Robotics and Haptics in VR 2019 – 2026 (expected defence 2026) · Vienna, Austria
Institute of Visual Computing and Human-Centered Technology.
Member of SFB Advanced Computational Design (TU Wien, TU Graz, University of Innsbruck).
Thesis: "Robotics; Large-Scale Haptic Interactions in Virtual Reality, Based on a Mobile Robotic Platform"
Supervisor:
Univ.Prof. Hannes Kaufmann |
Research profile
Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien)
Dipl.-Ing. (MSc) — Logic and Computation (AI focus) 2013 – 2016 · Vienna, Austria
Focus on Artificial Intelligence and Computational Intelligence.
Thesis: "Optimizations and Improvements of Topographic Robotic Grasping using Machine Learning Approaches"
Supervisor:
Ao.Univ.Prof. Markus Vincze
University of Bern
MSc Computer Science (Exchange Semester) 2012 · Bern, SwitzerlandJoint program of University of Bern, University of Neuchâtel, and University of Fribourg.
Iran University of Science and Technology
BSc — Computer Engineering (Software Engineering) 2006 – 2011 · Tehran, IranThesis: "A New Priority-Based Agent Communication Control Mechanism for Multi-Player Games using Machinetta"
Awards & Recognition
- 2023 Best Project Award — ACM SIGGRAPH Emerging Technologies, Los Angeles — for Action-Origami Inspired Haptic Devices for Virtual Reality
- 2024 Invited Demonstration — Laval Virtual, France
- 2016–19 Top 40 Young Austrian Companies with Nativy
- 2009 1st Place — International IranOpen RoboCup Urban Search & Rescue League
- 2009 6th Place — International RoboCup Urban Search & Rescue League, Graz, Austria
- — Top 1% — Nationwide University Entrance Examination Ranking (Iran)
Skills
Robotics & Autonomous Systems
Machine Learning & AI
LLMs & Agentic AI
Simulation & XR
Hardware & Embedded
Programming Languages
Infrastructure & DevOps
Certifications & Training
- Didactics Certification, TU Wien, 2022
- IEEE-RAS Safety, Security and Rescue Robotics Summer School (SSRR), Alanya, Turkey, 2012
- ROS RoboCup Rescue Summer School, Graz University of Technology, 2012
- Austrian Robotics Workshop, Klagenfurt, Austria
- Data Mining and Industrial Applications, Iran University of Science and Technology, 2009
- Introduction to Data Mining, TÜV Rheinland Academy, 2008