Samir Menon

I am presently working to understand and model neural control of the musculoskeletal system. I am also working on a finitist computational mathematics formulation, with a specific focus on modeling the process of computation and control in mixed-mode analog-digital systems. Such systems include robots, neuromorphic computers, and the human brain.

Earlier, I earned a Ph.D. in Computer Science at Stanford University, where I was co-advised by Oussama Khatib and Kwabena Boahen. My research involved applying insights from humanoid robotics to predict how the brain should coordinate multiple tasks, and using functional magnetic resonance imaging to identify the brain regions responsible.

Before that, I worked as a Software Design Engineer with Microsoft India R&D. Before before that, I was an undergraduate at the Indian Institute of Information Technology, Allahabad where I earned a Bachelors in Technology in Information Technology.

You may also find me on the Manips Lab, the Brains in Silicon Lab, and the Bio-X Graduate Fellowship pages.


Samir Menon
           



Events and Updates

Stanford Math Foundations Seminar
Organizer: Stanford Math Foundations Seminar '17
SIMPAR 2016
General Co-chair:
SIMPAR'16
Humanoids '15 Workshop on Whole-Body Multi-Task Multi-Contact Humanoid Control
Organizer: WMMHC
Workshop at Humanoids'15
ICRA '15 HNN Workshop
Organizer: HNN
Workshop at ICRA'15
Stanford Robotics Seminar
Organizer: Stanford
Robotics Seminar, Fall'14
Stanford Robotics Seminar
Organizer: Stanford
Robotics Seminar, Spr'14
Stanford Robotics Seminar
Haptic fMRI Featured:
Twitter, and Facebook
Controlling a robot with Neurogrid
Neural Control Featured:
Facebook
Controlling a robot with Neurogrid
Neural Control Featured:
NYTimes, NDTV, ASME, SMH, Sohu, CSDN, SABAH, BGR, Crazy Eng.
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Peer-Reviewed Publications

Controlling Muscle-Actuated Articulated Bodies in Operational Space
[2017] Menon. S, Migimatsu. T, Khatib. O, "Controlling Muscle-Actuated Articulated Bodies in Operational Space", (Under review), 2017. Download paper Bibtex
A Novel Five DOF Haptic Interface for Multi-Axis Motor Neuroscience Experiments
[2017] Menon. S, Soviche. A, Mithrakumar. J, Subbarao. A, Khatib. O, "A Novel Haptic fMRI Interface for Five-Axis Force and Motion Neuroimaging Experiments", Intelligent Robots and Systems, 2017 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on , 2017. Download paper Bibtex
Haptic fMRI : Reliability and Performance of Electromagnetic Haptic Interfaces For Motion and Force Neuroimaging Experiments
[2017] Menon. S, Zhu. J, Goyal. D, Khatib. O, " Haptic fMRI : Reliability and Performance of Electromagnetic Haptic Interfaces For Motion and Force Neuroimaging Experiments", Proceedings of the 39th Annual Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, 2017 Download paper Bibtex
Haptic fMRI : A Novel Five DOF Haptic Interface for Multi-Axis Motor Neuroscience Experiments
[2017] Menon. S, Soviche. A, Mithrakumar. J, Subbarao. A, Ganti. H, Khatib. O, "Haptic fMRI : A Novel Five DOF Haptic Interface for Multi-Axis Motor Neuroscience Experiments", World Haptics Sympoisium, 2017. Download paper Bibtex
A Parameterized Family of Anatomically Accurate Human Upper-Body Musculoskeletal Models for
                Dynamic Simulation & Control
[2016] Menon. S, Migimatsu. T, Khatib. O, "A Parameterized Family of Anatomically Accurate Human Upper-Body Musculoskeletal Models for Dynamic Simulation & Control", Proceedings of the 16th IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots, 2016. Download paper Bibtex
Experimental Analysis of Human Control Strategies in Contact Manipulation Tasks
[2016] Klingbeil. E, Menon. S, Khatib. O, "Experimental Analysis of Human Control Strategies in Contact Manipulation Tasks", Experimental Robotics, Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics, Vol. xx, pages xx-xx, 2016. (In press) Download paper Bibtex
From Bot to Bot: Using a Chat Bot to Synthesize Robot Motion
[2016] Fischer. M*, Menon. S*, Khatib. O, "From Bot to Bot: Using a Chat Bot to Synthesize Robot Motion", Proceedings of the AAAI Fall Symposium on Artificial Intelligence for Human-Robot Interaction, 2016. (In press; *authors contributed equally) Download paper Bibtex
Using Haptic fMRI to Enable Interactive Motor Neuroimaging Experiments
[2016] Menon. S, Ganti. H, Khatib. O, "Using Haptic fMRI to Enable Interactive Motor Neuroimaging Experiments", Experimental Robotics, Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics, Vol. 109, pages 89-103, 2016. [Springer] Download paper Bibtex
Haptic fMRI : Accurately Estimating Neural Responses in Motor, Pre-Motor, and Somatosensory Cortex During Complex Motor Tasks
[2014] Menon. S, Yu. M, Kay. K, Khatib. O, " Haptic fMRI : Accurately Estimating Neural Responses in Motor, Pre-Motor, and Somatosensory Cortex During Complex Motor Tasks", Proceedings of the 36th Annual Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, 2014 [Pubmed, IEEE] Download paper Bibtex
Mapping Stiffness Perception in the Brain with an fMRI-Compatible Particle-Jamming Haptic Interface
[2014] Menon. S, Stanley. A, Zhu. J, Okamura. A, Khatib. O, " Mapping Stiffness Perception in the Brain with an fMRI-Compatible Particle-Jamming Haptic Interface", Proceedings of the 36th Annual Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, 2014 [Pubmed, IEEE] Download paper Bibtex
Haptic fMRI : Using Classification to Quantify Task-Correlated Noise during Goal-Directed Reaching Motions
[2014] Menon. S, Quigley. P, Yu. M, Khatib. O, " Haptic fMRI : Using Classification to Quantify Task-Correlated Noise during Goal-Directed Reaching Motions", Proceedings of the 36th Annual Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, 2014 [Pubmed, IEEE] Download paper Bibtex
Controlling Articulated Robots in Task-Space with Spiking Silicon Neurons
[2014] Menon. S, Fok. S, Neckar. A, Khatib. O, Boahen. K, " Controlling Articulated Robots in Task-Space with Spiking Silicon Neurons", Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics, 2014 [IEEE] Download paper Bibtex
Using Haptics To Identify Human Contact Control Strategies For Six Degree-of-Freedom Tasks
[2014] Klingbeil. E, Menon. S, Go. K, Khatib. O, " Using Haptics To Identify Human Contact Control Strategies For Six Degree-of-Freedom Tasks", World Haptics Sympoisium, 2014. [IEEE] Download paper Bibtex
Haptic fMRI : Combining Functional Neuroimaging with Haptics for Studying the Brain's Motor Control Representation
[2013] Menon. S, Brantner. G, Aholt. C, Kay. K, Khatib. O, " Haptic fMRI : Combining Functional Neuroimaging with Haptics for Studying the Brain's Motor Control Representation", Proceedings of the 35th Annual Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, pages 4137–4142, 2013 [Pubmed, IEEE] Download paper Bibtex
Human Motion Reconstruction And Synthesis of Human Skill
[2010] Demircan. E, Besier. T, Menon. S, Khatib. O, " Human Motion Reconstruction And Synthesis of Human Skill", Advances in Robot Kinematics: Motion in Man and Machine, edited by Jardan Lenarcic and Michael M. stanisic, Springer Netherlands, pages 283–292, 2010, [Springer] Download paper Bibtex



Abstracts and Invited Talks

[2016] Menon. S, "Mechanistic models of human capability: Using biomechanics to inform human-robot collaboration", (Invited Talk), Workshop on Perspectives on Analysis and Design of Human-Centered Robotics, 2014. [Link]

[2016] Menon. S, Sriram. V, Kumanduri. L, Khatib. O, Boahen. K, "Controlling a Redundant Articulated Robot in Task Space with Spiking Neurons", (Abstract; Poster), The 25th International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks, 2016. Download paper Bibtex

[2014] Menon. S, "Controlling articulated bodies using redundant and non-negative muscle actuation", (Invited Talk), Workshop on Redundancy, inequalities, and the mathematical tools to address them at the Conference on Humanoid Robotics, 2014. [Link]

[2014] Menon. S, Yu. M, Ganti. H, Boahen. K, Khatib. O, "Haptic fMRI: Mapping neural activation during planning and reaching for unconstrained three degree­-of-freedom tasks", (Abstract; Poster), 44th Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, 2014. Bibtex

[2014] Menon. S, Zhu. J, Quigley. P, Boahen. K, Khatib. O, "Using fMRI to Characterize How Cortex Represents Limb Motions", (Abstract; Poster), 23rd Annual Computational Neuroscience Meeting, 2014. [BMC Neuroscience] Bibtex

[2013] Brantner. G, Menon. S, Schorpp. G, Khatib. O, "SVM-based Classification of Motor-Tasks On fMRI-BOLD Data", (Abstract; Poster), 6th International IEEE EMBS Conference on Neural Engineering, 2013 [IEEE] Download paper Bibtex

[2011] Menon. S, Khatib. O, "Controlling Biomechanical Models To Move Like Human Do", (Abstract; Invited Talk), Biomechanical Engineering Conference at Stanford, 2011 Download paper Bibtex



Links

Blog: Musings on human motor control The Human Motor Control Blog.

Operational Space Control Math Tutorials: 3-dof and 6-dof chain robots.

Teaching: Course Assistant for CS223A Introduction to Robotics, and CS327A Advanced Robotic Manipulation. 2010-11.

Standard Utilities (sUtil): Some random but useful C++ code. stl-style indexed data structures, dynamic typing, template singletons and callback handlers.

Standard MRI Utilities (sMRIUtil): Some useful scripts and code that I use for fMRI experiments and analysis. Also has some tidbits of information for new fMRI users.

The Standard Control Library (scl): A control and simulation framework for robots and human biomechanical models. Includes operational space and joint space control libraries, multi-task null space projections for controllers, and support for physical actuator and sensor models. (In the works, contact me if you'd like more details).



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    Last updated on Oct 24th, 2016