Megnath Ramesh

I am a Postdoctoral Fellow and Vector Faculty Affiliate Researcher at the University of Waterloo, working with advisors Stephen L. Smith and Baris Fidan. My research focuses on developing generative AI models to plan robot paths for long-horizon coverage and exploration tasks.

I completed my Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Waterloo (2020-2025), where my thesis focused on planning and replanning near-optimal robot coverage paths in partially unknown environments. My research developed efficient coverage planning algorithms for industrial cleaning robots, with a focus on combinatorial planning algorithms with approximation guarantees for robots in uncertain environments. My Ph.D. was a collaboration with Avidbots Corp. towards improving the performance of real-world cleaning robots that encounter environmental uncertainties.

During my Ph.D., I was honored to receive several prestigious awards including the Ontario Graduate Scholarship, UW President’s Graduate Scholarship, and QEII Graduate Scholarship. Before my Ph.D., I obtained my B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Alberta. During my undergrad, I worked on robotics projects aimed at automating dangerous tasks, including two award-winning projects at major student hackathons: RoVR the Explorer (HackED 2019, 3rd Place) and Paulie Blart Security Robot (SFHacks 2018, 1st Place).

When I’m not working on robots, I am an avid basketball nerd, F1 enthusiast, and amateur rock climber.

selected publications

RA-L
Minimum-Length Coverage Path Planning for Grid Environments with Approximation Guarantees

Megnath Ramesh , Frank Imeson , Baris Fidan , and Stephen L. Smith

IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 2025

Bib Website
@article{ramesh2025minimum, title = {Minimum-Length Coverage Path Planning for Grid Environments with Approximation Guarantees}, author = {Ramesh, Megnath and Imeson, Frank and Fidan, Baris and Smith, Stephen L.}, journal = {IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters}, year = {2025}, publisher = {IEEE}, }
CDC
Approximate Environment Decompositions for Robot Coverage Planning using Submodular Set Cover

Megnath Ramesh , Frank Imeson , Baris Fidan , and Stephen L. Smith

In IEEE Conference on Decision and Control , 2024

Bib Website
@inproceedings{ramesh2024approximate, title = {Approximate Environment Decompositions for Robot Coverage Planning using Submodular Set Cover}, author = {Ramesh, Megnath and Imeson, Frank and Fidan, Baris and Smith, Stephen L.}, booktitle = {IEEE Conference on Decision and Control}, year = {2024}, publisher = {IEEE}, }
T-RO
Anytime Replanning of Robot Coverage Paths for Partially Unknown Environments

Megnath Ramesh , Frank Imeson , Baris Fidan , and Stephen L. Smith

IEEE Transactions on Robotics, 2024

Bib Website
@article{ramesh2024anytime, title = {Anytime Replanning of Robot Coverage Paths for Partially Unknown Environments}, author = {Ramesh, Megnath and Imeson, Frank and Fidan, Baris and Smith, Stephen L.}, journal = {IEEE Transactions on Robotics}, year = {2024}, publisher = {IEEE}, }
RA-L
Optimal Partitioning of Non-Convex Environments for Minimum Turn Coverage Planning

Megnath Ramesh , Frank Imeson , Baris Fidan , and Stephen L. Smith

IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 2022

Bib Website
@article{ramesh2022optimal, title = {Optimal Partitioning of Non-Convex Environments for Minimum Turn Coverage Planning}, author = {Ramesh, Megnath and Imeson, Frank and Fidan, Baris and Smith, Stephen L.}, journal = {IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters}, year = {2022}, publisher = {IEEE}, }