DrDipankar Bhattacharya

Dr Dipankar Bhattacharya is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at the Dyson School of Design Engineering, Imperial College London. He leads CASREx, a cable-driven soft reconfigurable exosuit for rehabilitation after muscle impairment, designed to learn and reproduce how healthy adults regulate arm stiffness during everyday movements.

His current research asks whether we stiffen in order to learn, not only to feel safe when movement is disturbed. In healthy people, bracing can make a contact-rich task temporarily easier to predict; after stroke, that automatic body tuning can fail even when reaching is still possible. Dr Bhattacharya combines EMG, digital twins, and learning-based control to identify the rules behind this tuning and translate them into a soft robotic sleeve that cues joint configuration rather than moving the limb, aiming for stability and lasting skill, including in tasks such as carrying a cup or holding a tool.

He specialises in robotic systems that integrate learning algorithms with physics-based modelling for accurate, robust control. He obtained his PhD in Mechatronics Engineering from the University of Auckland in 2021 and has published in leading journals including IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology, Mechanism and Machine Theory, and Soft Robotics. His research has received the Best Paper Award at the International Conference on Robotic Intelligence Technology and Applications, and his recent work on cable-driven soft exosuit control has been accepted at IEEE IROS 2026.

Before joining Imperial, Dr Bhattacharya was a Senior Research Engineer at the Center for Transformative Garment Production and a Visiting Research Associate at the University of Hong Kong, where he developed robotic fabric manipulation methods for transforming randomly wrinkled fabrics into target shapes. This work combined imitation learning, visual servoing, and mesh-based Transformer models for precise and generalisable dual-arm manipulation of deformable materials.

He also held a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, working on modelling, control, and optimisation of cable-driven robotic systems, including cable-driven bionic arms, superlimbs, inflatable growing robots, and bio-inspired soft pneumatic robots.

Dr Bhattacharya’s research spans robotic manipulation, soft robotics, cable-driven parallel robots, and intelligent control. His broader goal is to bridge model-based control and data-driven learning to create next-generation robots capable of operating in deformable, uncertain, and complex environments, while translating this science into assistive technologies that help stroke survivors recover movement stability and functional independence.

He specialises in robotic systems that integrate learning algorithms with physics-based modelling for accurate, robust control. He obtained his PhD in Mechatronics Engineering from the University of Auckland in 2021 and has published in leading journals including IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology, Mechanism and Machine Theory, and Soft Robotics. His research has received the Best Paper Award at the International Conference on Robotic Intelligence Technology and Applications, and his recent work on cable-driven soft exosuit control has been accepted at IEEE IROS 2026.

Before joining Imperial, Dr Bhattacharya was a Senior Research Engineer at the Center for Transformative Garment Production and a Visiting Research Associate at the University of Hong Kong, where he developed robotic fabric manipulation methods for transforming randomly wrinkled fabrics into target shapes. This work combined imitation learning, visual servoing, and mesh-based Transformer models for precise and generalisable dual-arm manipulation of deformable materials.

He also held a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, working on modelling, control, and optimisation of cable-driven robotic systems, including cable-driven bionic arms, superlimbs, inflatable growing robots, and bio-inspired soft pneumatic robots.

Dr Bhattacharya’s research spans robotic manipulation, soft robotics, cable-driven parallel robots, and intelligent control. His broader goal is to bridge model-based control and data-driven learning to create next-generation robots capable of operating in deformable, uncertain, and complex environments, while translating this science into assistive technologies that help stroke survivors recover movement stability and functional independence.