Siddarth Narasimhan

I'm an MASc student at the University of Toronto Robotics Institute, advised by Dr. Goldie Nejat, where I work on building novel navigation and control policies for robots using diffusion and large foundation models.

I completed my BASc in Engineering Science, Robotics Option and AI Minor at the University of Toronto with Honours. Outside of research, you will find me either pursuing the National Master title, performing in concerts on the mridhangam, or playing competitive table tennis.

Last Updated: Mar '25

Email  /  Resume  /  CV  /  LinkedIn  /  Scholar  /  GitHub

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Publications

OLiVia-Nav: An Online Lifelong Vision Language Approach for Mobile Robot Social Navigation
Siddarth Narasimhan, Aaron Hao Tan, Daniel Choi, Goldie Nejat
ICRA 2025 + LLHomeRobots @ CoRL 2024 (Spotlight) + LangRob @ CoRL 2024
Paper / Poster / Video / Talk

We introduce OLiVia-Nav, an online lifelong vision language architecture for mobile robot social navigation. By leveraging large vision-language models (VLMs) and a novel distillation process called SC-CLIP, OLiVia-Nav efficiently encodes social and environmental contexts, adapting to dynamic human environments.

4CNet: A Diffusion Approach to Map Prediction for Decentralized Multi-Robot Exploration
Aaron Hao Tan, Siddarth Narasimhan, Goldie Nejat
IEEE Transactions on Robotics 2024, (Under Review)
Paper / Video

We present a novel robot exploration map prediction method called Confidence-Aware Contrastive Conditional Consistency Model (4CNet), to predict (foresee) unknown spatial configurations in unknown unstructured multi- robot environments with irregularly shaped obstacles.

Research Collaborations

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MapEx: Indoor Structure Exploration with Probabilistic Information Gain from Global Map Predictions
Siddarth Narasimhan (Acknowledged)
ICRA 2025
Paper

A new exploration framework that uses map prediction to form probabilistic sensor model for information gain estimation.

Work Experience

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Syncere
Lead Hardware and Software Engineer
Sept 2024 - Feb 2025

Building a startup with my colleagues in an effort to bring robots into the home. I am currently involved in building the hardware and software design of our robot. See our weekly progress here!

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Advanced Micro Devices (AMD)
Power Design Engineer / Firmware Engineer - Data Center
May 2021 - Apr 2022

Documented performance of ASICs using metrics such as power efficiency, over current protection, dynamic response and power up. Inspected schematics and layouts to rework damaged boards and recommend improvements. Designed a robust Remote Management platform using a Raspberry Pi to automate the generation and sending of I2C/SMBUS/ MCTP/PLDM packets, and decode and debug live traffic through a custom-built GUI. Received Spotlight Award for novel contributions and excellent performance as a co-op student.

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Ontario Ministry of Transportation
Data Science Intern
Jun 2020 - Aug 2020

Developed an intelligent provincial transportation system for highway analytics by leveraging GPS data and machine learning. Used by the Ministry of Transportation to obtain live traffic volume estimates on GTA highways. Designed a novel timestamp detection and recognition algorithm to locate and convert timestamps found in highway video feed to text.

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Ontario Ministry of Government and Consumer Services
Data Analyst
Jun 2018 - Aug 2018 / May 2019 - Aug 2019

Built macro-powered databases to analyze thousands of spend transactions by Ontario ministries and standardize annual reporting. Engineered the databases using advanced techniques and visualization tools, such as Microsoft Excel, Access and Power BI.

Projects

Koch VLM Benchmarks

Implemented state-of-the-art VLM frameworks (ReKep, Pi0) on the Koch_v1.1 manipulator to enable zero-shot, prompt-driven object manipulation.

SCARA Robot

I designed a robust SCARA manipulator mounted on a Clearpath Jackal for precise pick-and-place applications, powered by vision-language models and computer vision. It was programmed to play chess!

RRT Playground

An object-oriented C++ implementation of popular variants of the rapidly exploring random trees algorithm, including RRT, RRT*, Anytime RRT and Informed RRT*.

RobotVision

The goal of RobotVision is to simulate control, path-planning, localization and mapping of a non-holonomic robot in a 2D world, while also providing a comprehensive mathematical formulation of each method. Implementation includes PID Control, lead-lag control, Dubin's path calculator, Extended Kalman Filter, and SLAM.

Pu239 (Autonomous Drone)

For our capstone project, we built a drone that is capable of stable hover, waypoint navigation and obstacle avoidance. Our team won the award for smoothest flight!

Scholarships

2025: IEEE Robotics and Automation Society ($2k)
2024: NSERC HeRo CREATE Fellowship ($10k)
2020: Mario And Dorothy Pesando Scholarship ($4k)
2018: Hira And Kamal Ahuja Award In Engineering ($1.5k)
2018: Loblaw Scholarship ($1.5k)
2018: UofT Engineering Entrance Scholarship ($2k)
2018: Municipal Engineers Association Bursary ($1.5k)

Teachings

2025 W: MIE443: Mechatronics Systems: Design & Integration, Lab TA, University of Toronto
2024 W: MIE443: Mechatronics Systems: Design & Integration, Lab TA, University of Toronto

Extracurricular Achievements

2023 S: Excelsior June Open U2000, 2nd Place (Standings)
2022 F: Hart House Holidays U1900 Chess Tournament, 1st Place (Picture/Standings)
2019 S: Canadian Junior Chess Championship U1300, 1st Place (Picture/Standings)
2018 W: Ontario High School Chess Championship, Team: 2nd Place, Individual: 4th Place (Picture/Standings)
2018 W: Peel Chess League - Team: 2nd Place (Picture)
2017 F: UWaterloo - Canadian Senior Math Contest, 1st Place at High School (Medal)
2017 W: ROPSSAA Table Tennis, Men's Singles, 4th Place (Medal)
2017 W: Region of Peel Chess Tournament - Seniors, 3rd Place (Picture)
2016 W: Region of Peel Chess Tournament - Juniors, 1st Place

Thank you to Jon Barron.