Prof. M. Mahadeeswara Yadav

Prof. M. Mahadeeswara Yadav is an Assistant Professor in the Mechanical cluster at the School of Advanced Engineering, UPES. He is passionate about unmanned aerial vehicles and nature's flying machines (insects and birds). To pursue his passion further, he completed a Ph.D. in the field of aerial biorobotics at Queensland Brain Institute, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. Before doing his Ph.D., he pursued his master's degree in avionics at Madras Institute of Technology, Anna University, Chennai. He has also worked in the software and aerospace industries.

Before joining the UPES, Prof. Yadav worked as an avionics engineer at the Aeronautical Development Agency, Bengaluru. He was actively involved in the system design and evaluation facility for the indigenous fighter aircraft - Tejas. He was awarded a scholarship by Boeing Research and Technology, Australia, which enabled him to present his research work to the Boeing research team, providing valuable insights into research expectations and the technical challenges faced by aerospace companies. Additionally, he briefly worked as a software engineer in the software industry.

In all 6 years of his Ph.D. research, Prof. Yadav extensively studied the flight characteristics and collision avoidance behavior of honeybees flying in a near-natural environment. Now that he has completed his Ph.D., he is looking to collaborate with his colleagues and students who would be interested in solving flight-related problems of aerial vehicles using bioinspired principles. In that way, he could add value to the team by sharing what he has learned during his Ph.D.

As an engineer, Prof. Yadav believes in experimenting and trying hands-on approaches. He plans to incorporate this philosophy into his teaching sessions as well. He aims to teach certain concepts through demonstrations or simulations to help students better understand and visualize the subjects being taught.

Prof. Yadav will be handling avionics-related subjects for aerospace students at the UPES. Apart from that, he would be mentoring students interested in working on aerial robotics and computer vision projects.

Prof. Yadav is a recipient of the University of Queensland higher research degree international scholarship, covering both his tuition fee and living expenses for 5 years (2015-2020). He is also a recipient of the Boeing Research and Technology, Australia (BRT-A) top-up scholarship for the entire duration of his Ph.D. studies. While doing his postgraduation, he also received Aeronautical Research & Development Board (ARDB) scholarship, awarded by the Defence Research & Development Organization (DRDO), India for the academic year 2011 & 2012.

During his post-graduation studies, Prof. Yadav participated in the "UAVFORGE" - An unmanned aerial vehicle competition organized by US DOD & DARPA, from 15th January 2012 to 20th May 2012 (3 stages – 2 stages in India & 1 in the USA). His team consisted of 5 members and was the only team from India to participate in the competition. He was responsible for handling computer vision-related tasks in the competition. He also took part in the presentation and demonstration of “Hex copter for Civil Applications” developed by their UAV team, which was led by Prof. K. Senthil Kumar, to His Excellency, Dr. APJ. Abdul Kalam ji, Hon’ble former President of India during his visit to the department of aerospace engineering, Anna University, India on 10th August 2012. Furthermore, Prof. Yadav presented his research work at prestigious robotics and neuroethology conferences during his Ph.D. research.

mahadeeswara.Yadav@ddn.upes.ac.in