Siddarth Jain

Siddarth is a Principal Research Scientist at Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories (MERL). His research spans computer vision, machine learning, and robotics, with a focus on enabling autonomous systems to perceive, understand, and act in the physical world. He develops data-driven and geometric approaches for perception, manipulation, learning, and decision-making, with applications in human-robot collaboration and real-world automation. He also serves as an Associate Editor for IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L).

He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Northwestern University in 2019. In collaboration with the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, his doctoral research focused on perception and shared autonomy for assistive systems.

In his spare time, he pursues amateur astrophotography, blending science and artistry with a particular interest in deep-sky imaging.

Contact: sjain {at} merl[dot]com

news

Aug 30, 2026

We are hiring a Ph.D. student for Vision-Language-Action (VLA) Models internship. Please apply here.

Aug 29, 2026

We are hiring a Ph.D. student for Robotic Manipulation for Disassembly internship. Please apply here.

Jun 01, 2026

Presenting 2 papers at ICRA 2026, Vienna, Austria.

May 19, 2025

Presenting 2 papers at ICRA 2025.

May 19, 2025

Serving as a session chair for Human-Robot Collaboration at ICRA 2025.

Oct 14, 2024

Presenting 5 papers at IROS 2024.

May 13, 2024

Presenting a live demo on Autonomous Assembly at ICRA 2024, Yokohama, Japan.

Jan 09, 2024

Presenting a live demo at CES 2024, Las Vegas, USA.

selected publications

EARL: Eye-on-hand Reinforcement Learner for Dynamic Grasping with Active Pose Estimation

Baichuan Huang, Jingjin Yu, and Siddarth Jain

In Proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2023

: Dynamic Grasping | Reinforcement Learning | Pose Estimation | Closed-Loop Control | Visual Servoing

DOI Bib PDF Video

@inproceedings{huang2023earl,
  title = {EARL: Eye-on-hand Reinforcement Learner for Dynamic Grasping with Active Pose Estimation},
  author = {Huang, Baichuan and Yu, Jingjin and Jain, Siddarth},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)},
  pages = {2963--2970},
  year = {2023},
  organization = {IEEE},
  doi = {10.1109/IROS55552.2023.10341988},
}

SplatCtrl: Perception-Action Coupling via Gaussian Scene Representations and Reactive Robot Control

Siddarth Jain and Ho Jin Choi

In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2026

Bib PDF

@inproceedings{jain2026splatctrl,
  title = {SplatCtrl: Perception-Action Coupling via Gaussian Scene Representations and Reactive Robot Control},
  author = {Jain, Siddarth and Choi, Ho Jin},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)},
  year = {2026},
  organization = {IEEE},
}

M-VTOP: Modular Visuo-Tactile Object Pose Estimation for High-Precision Robotic Manipulation

Miquel Oller, Qiyang Qian, Radu Corcodel, and Siddarth Jain

In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2026

: Pose Estimation | Insertion | Assembly | Visuo-Tactile

Bib PDF

@inproceedings{oller2026mvtop,
  title = {M-VTOP: Modular Visuo-Tactile Object Pose Estimation for High-Precision Robotic Manipulation},
  author = {Oller, Miquel and Qian, Qiyang and Corcodel, Radu and Jain, Siddarth},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)},
  year = {2026},
  organization = {IEEE},
}

Insert-One: One-shot Robust Visual-Force Servoing for Novel Object Insertion with 6-DoF Tracking

Haonan Chang, Abdeslam Boularias, and Siddarth Jain

In Proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2024

: Assembly | Robotic Insertion | Visual-Force Servoing | Robust Manipulation | Visual Tracking

DOI Bib PDF

@inproceedings{chang2024insert,
  title = {Insert-One: One-shot Robust Visual-Force Servoing for Novel Object Insertion with 6-DoF Tracking},
  author = {Chang, Haonan and Boularias, Abdeslam and Jain, Siddarth},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)},
  pages = {2935--2942},
  year = {2024},
  organization = {IEEE},
  doi = {10.1109/IROS58592.2024.10801884},
}

Probabilistic Human Intent Recognition for Shared Autonomy in Assistive Robotics

Siddarth Jain and Brenna Argall

ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction (THRI), 2019

: Shared Autonomy | Human Intent Recognition | Bayesian Inference | Assistive Robotics | HRI

DOI Bib HTML PDF

@article{jain2019probabilistic,
  title = {Probabilistic Human Intent Recognition for Shared Autonomy in Assistive Robotics},
  author = {Jain, Siddarth and Argall, Brenna},
  journal = {ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction (THRI)},
  volume = {9},
  number = {1},
  pages = {1--23},
  year = {2019},
  publisher = {ACM New York, NY, USA},
  url = {https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3359614},
  doi = {10.1145/3359614},
}

Open Human-Robot Collaboration using Decentralized Inverse Reinforcement Learning

Prasanth Sengadu Suresh, Siddarth Jain, Prashant Doshi, and Diego Romeres

In Proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2024

: Inverse Reinforcement Learning | Multi-Agent Systems | Collaborative Assembly | HRI

DOI Bib PDF

@inproceedings{suresh2024opeo,
  title = {Open Human-Robot Collaboration using Decentralized Inverse Reinforcement Learning},
  author = {Suresh, Prasanth Sengadu and Jain, Siddarth and Doshi, Prashant and Romeres, Diego},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)},
  pages = {7092--7098},
  year = {2024},
  organization = {IEEE},
  doi = {10.1109/IROS58592.2024.10801889},
}

Assistive Robotic Manipulation through Shared Autonomy and a Body-Machine Interface

Siddarth Jain, Ali Farshchiansadegh, Alexander Broad, Farnaz Abdollahi, Ferdinando Mussa-Ivaldi, and Brenna Argall

In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics (ICORR), 2015

: Body-Machine Interface | Shared Control | Assistive Robotics

DOI Bib PDF

@inproceedings{jain2015assistive,
  title = {Assistive Robotic Manipulation through Shared Autonomy and a Body-Machine Interface},
  author = {Jain, Siddarth and Farshchiansadegh, Ali and Broad, Alexander and Abdollahi, Farnaz and Mussa-Ivaldi, Ferdinando and Argall, Brenna},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics (ICORR)},
  pages = {526--531},
  year = {2015},
  organization = {IEEE},
  doi = {10.1109/ICORR.2015.7281253},
}

Discriminative 3D Shape Modeling for Few-Shot Instance Segmentation

Anoop Cherian, Siddarth Jain, Tim K Marks, and Alan Sullivan

In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2023

: Instance Segmentation | Shape Modeling | Few-Shot Learning | Computer Vision

DOI Bib PDF

@inproceedings{cherian2023discriminative,
  title = {Discriminative 3D Shape Modeling for Few-Shot Instance Segmentation},
  author = {Cherian, Anoop and Jain, Siddarth and Marks, Tim K and Sullivan, Alan},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)},
  pages = {9296--9302},
  year = {2023},
  organization = {IEEE},
  doi = {10.1109/ICRA48891.2023.10160644},
}

Grasp Detection for Assistive Robotic Manipulation

Siddarth Jain and Brenna Argall

In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2016

: Grasping | Shape Primitives | Point Clouds | Grasp Detection

DOI Bib PDF

@inproceedings{jain2016grasp,
  title = {Grasp Detection for Assistive Robotic Manipulation},
  author = {Jain, Siddarth and Argall, Brenna},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)},
  pages = {2015--2021},
  year = {2016},
  organization = {IEEE},
  doi = {10.1109/ICRA.2016.7487348},
}

Automated Perception of Safe Docking Locations with Alignment Information for Assistive Wheelchairs

Siddarth Jain and Brenna Argall

In Proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2014

: Docking Detection | Point Clouds | Computer Vision | Assistive Robotics

DOI Bib PDF

@inproceedings{jain2014automated,
  title = {Automated Perception of Safe Docking Locations with Alignment Information for Assistive Wheelchairs},
  author = {Jain, Siddarth and Argall, Brenna},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)},
  pages = {4997--5002},
  year = {2014},
  organization = {IEEE},
  doi = {10.1109/IROS.2014.6943272},
}