Keshav Bimbraw

केशव बिम्बरा | ਕੇਸ਼ਵ ਬਿੰਬਰਾ

I am a Machine Learning Research and Development Engineer at OnPoint Surgical, Inc., based in Concord, Massachusetts. I apply advances in AI/ML to medical imaging modalities to support the next generation of surgical robotics. I completed my PhD in Robotics at WPI's Medical FUSION Lab, where my research focused on applying deep learning to ultrasound and other biosignal data for real-time unimodal and multimodal biosignal-based prediction. My work has applications across robotic teleoperation, AR/VR, surgical robotics, rehabilitation robotics, and gaming.

During my PhD, I interned at Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories in Cambridge, Massachusetts during the summers of 2023 and 2024, where I worked on improving robustness of multimodal biosignal-based gesture estimation and using large vision-language models for biosignal-based human-machine interfacing. In Summer and Fall 2022, I worked as an Augmented Human Sensing Researcher at Nokia Bell Labs, where I worked on multimodal biosignal processing and low-latency robotic teleoperation.

Prior to starting my PhD, I interned in Active Noise Control Engineering at Bose and worked as an Audio DSP Engineer. I hold a Master's in Music Technology from Georgia Tech, where I worked on AI-based human-machine interfacing and robotic musicianship. I completed a research internship at IIT Delhi during my undergraduate studies in Mechatronics Engineering at Thapar University.

News

Recent research updates, publications, invited talks, and professional milestones.

Oct 2025

Acoustic reflector ultrasound paper accepted to IEEE Sensors Journal

Our paper Acoustic Reflector Based Forearm Ultrasound for Hand Gesture Classification was accepted to be published in IEEE Sensors Journal.

IEEE Sensors Journal Wearable Ultrasound Gesture Classification
Jul 2025

Presented edge AI work at MIDL 2025

Presented our paper Transfer Learning and Quantization for Efficient AP vs. LA X-Ray View Classification on an Edge Device at the Medical Imaging with Deep Learning Conference held at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.

MIDL Medical Imaging Edge AI Quantization
May 2025

Graduated with a PhD in Robotics Engineering

Graduated with a PhD in Robotics Engineering. I was one of the first PhDs to graduate from my adviser Dr. Haichong K. Zhang's lab.

PhD Robotics Medical AI
Feb 2025

Passed my PhD thesis defense

Passed my thesis defense. Huge thanks to my committee, with members from Harvard University, Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories, and WPI.

Thesis Defense Robotics Ultrasound HMI
More updates from 2024 and earlier
Nov 2024

Invited talk at IEEE BHI 2024

Delivered an invited talk titled Integrating AI with Ultrasound for Enhanced Human-Machine Interfacing at the AI in Tele-echography workshop at IEEE BHI 2024.

Invited Talk IEEE BHI AI + Ultrasound
Oct 2024

GPT Sonography accepted to NeurIPS AIM-FM workshop

The GPT Sonography paper based on work done at MERL in Summer 2024 was accepted to the AIM-FM workshop at NeurIPS 2024.

NeurIPS Workshop GPT-4o Medical Foundation Models
Oct 2024

Started full-time work at OnPoint Surgical

Started full-time work at OnPoint Surgical to advance surgical robotics.

Medical AI Surgical Robotics Industry R&D
Sep 2024

Presented acoustic reflector ultrasound work at NERC 2024

Presented and gave a live demonstration of our acoustic-reflector-based forearm ultrasound system for hand gesture classification with Yichuan Tang at Northeast Robotics Colloquium at UMass Amherst.

NERC Live Demo Wearable Ultrasound
Jul 2024

Accepted full-time ML offer at OnPoint Surgical

Accepted a full-time Machine Learning Software Engineer offer at OnPoint Surgical, starting work in October 2024.

Machine Learning Medical Imaging Surgical Robotics
Jun 2024

Two papers accepted to IEEE IUS 2024

Two out of two papers were accepted to IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium 2024.

IEEE IUS Forearm Ultrasound Deep Learning
Jun 2024

Started second research internship at MERL

Started a research internship at Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories under Dr. Toshiaki Koike-Akino.

MERL VLMs Biosignals
Jun 2024

Passed my PhD thesis proposal

Passed my PhD thesis proposal.

PhD Milestone Robotics
May 2024

Won IEEE EMBC NextGen Scholar Award

Won the IEEE EMBC NextGen Scholar Award.

IEEE EMBC Award
Apr 2024

Multimodal biosignal robustness paper accepted to IEEE EMBC

A paper on improving robustness of multimodal biosignals for gesture classification based on my Summer 2023 internship at MERL was accepted to IEEE EMBC 2024.

IEEE EMBC Multimodal Biosignals Robust Learning
Nov 2023

Mirror-based ultrasound work accepted to SPIE Medical Imaging

Mirror-based forearm ultrasound for hand gesture classification using CNNs and Vision Transformers was accepted for presentation at SPIE Medical Imaging 2024 in San Diego, CA.

SPIE Medical Imaging CNN Vision Transformer
Oct 2023

Ultrasound-based virtual object manipulation presented at IEEE BSN

Ultrasound-based virtual object manipulation work was presented at IEEE EMBS BSN 2023 at the MIT Media Lab in Cambridge, MA.

IEEE BSN AR/VR Ultrasound Sensing
Sep 2023

Finger force estimation paper presented at IEEE IUS

Ultrasound-based finger force estimation was presented at IEEE IUS 2023 in Montreal, Canada.

IEEE IUS Force Estimation Forearm Ultrasound
Jul 2023

Ultrasound-based virtual object manipulation accepted to IEEE BSN

Our work on ultrasound-based virtual object manipulation was accepted to IEEE BSN 2023, held at the MIT Media Lab.

IEEE BSN Virtual Object Manipulation Ultrasound HMI
May 2023

Finger force estimation work accepted to IEEE IUS

My work on ultrasound-based finger force estimation was accepted to IEEE IUS 2023.

IEEE IUS Force Estimation Forearm Ultrasound
Mar 2023

Passed my PhD qualifiers

Gave my PhD qualifiers and passed.

PhD Milestone Robotics
Dec 2022

Completed a productive Co-Op at Nokia Bell Labs

Ended a very productive Co-Op at Nokia Bell Labs, producing deliverables including published and future papers, patents, and demonstrable videos.

Nokia Bell Labs Co-Op Biosignal HMI
Nov 2022

Hand configuration and joint-angle paper accepted to IEEE T-MRB

The paper Simultaneous Estimation of Hand Configurations and Finger Joint Angles Using Forearm Ultrasound was accepted to IEEE Transactions on Medical Robotics and Bionics.

IEEE T-MRB Hand Pose Estimation Forearm Ultrasound
Oct 2022

Biosignal-controlled HMI paper accepted to IEEE SII

The paper Towards the Development of a Low-Latency, Biosignal-Controlled Human-Machine Interaction System was accepted to IEEE SII 2023.

IEEE SII Biosignals Robotic Teleoperation
Aug 2022

Nokia Bell Labs Co-Op extension accepted

Based on my summer internship performance, the Data and Devices Group in the Artificial Intelligence Research Labs at Nokia Bell Labs extended a Co-Op offer, which I accepted.

Nokia Bell Labs Co-Op Human-Machine Interaction
Jun 2022

Joined Nokia Bell Labs as an Augmented Human Sensing Intern

Joined the Data and Devices Group in the Artificial Intelligence Research Labs at Nokia Bell Labs in New Providence, NJ.

Nokia Bell Labs Augmented Human Sensing HMI
May 2022

Presented ICRA paper and workshop poster

Presented a paper at the Autonomous Systems session and a poster at the Workshop on Human-Centered Autonomy in Medical Robotics at IEEE ICRA 2022 in Philadelphia.

IEEE ICRA Autonomous Systems Medical Robotics
Jan 2022

ICRA paper accepted

My recent paper was accepted to IEEE ICRA 2022.

IEEE ICRA Forearm Ultrasound Hand Pose Estimation
Dec 2021

Completed PhD qualifier coursework

Completed all courses required for my PhD qualifier.

PhD Milestone Coursework
Sep 2021

Submitted forearm ultrasound hand movement paper to ICRA

Submitted my paper on predicting continuous and discrete hand movements using forearm ultrasound images to ICRA 2022.

ICRA Forearm Ultrasound Hand Movement Prediction
Oct 2020

Robotic lung ultrasound paper published

My ultrasound image capture code was useful for Ryosuke's robotic lung ultrasound paper, which was published.

Robotic Ultrasound Lung Ultrasound Medical Robotics
Aug 2020

Started PhD in Robotics Engineering at WPI

Started my PhD in Robotics Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

WPI PhD Robotics
Mar 2020

Accepted PhD offer from WPI

Received PhD offers from Georgia Tech and WPI. Accepted the WPI offer and started working in the Medical FUSION Lab.

WPI Medical FUSION Lab Robotics PhD
Dec 2019

Ultrasound prosthetics work featured in The Age of A.I.

My project and code for controlling prosthetics with ultrasound were featured in the first episode of The Age of A.I.

The Age of A.I. Ultrasound HMI Prosthetics
Apr 2019

Sonomyography soft robotic gripper work presented at ISMR/SSMR

Presented Sonomyography-Based Real-Time Hand Grasp Configuration Identification via Supervised Learning to Control a Soft Robotic Gripper at ISMR/SSMR 2019.

ISMR/SSMR Sonomyography Soft Robotics
Oct 2018

Presented SMG and EMG work at BMES

Presented Comparison and Integration of SMG and EMG at BMES Annual Meeting 2018.

BMES SMG EMG

Selected Papers

Mirror-based ultrasound system demonstration

Mirror-Based Ultrasound System for Exploring Hand Gesture Classification through CNN and Vision Transformer

SPIE Medical Imaging 2024 · San Diego, CA

Ultrasound sensing for virtual object manipulation

Leveraging Ultrasound Sensing for Virtual Object Manipulation in Immersive Environments

IEEE BSN 2023 · Cambridge, MA

Finger force estimation from forearm ultrasound

Estimating Force Exerted by the Fingers Based on Forearm Ultrasound

IEEE IUS 2023 · Montreal, Canada

Low-latency biosignal-controlled human-machine interaction system

Towards the Development of a Low-Latency, Biosignal-Controlled Human-Machine Interaction System

IEEE/SICE SII 2023 · Atlanta, GA

Forearm ultrasound hand configuration and joint angle prediction

Prediction of MCP Joint Angles and Classification of Hand Configurations from Forearm Ultrasound

IEEE ICRA 2022 and IEEE Transactions on Medical Robotics and Bionics · Philadelphia, PA

Forearm ultrasound ASL classification

Forearm Ultrasound Images Can Be Classified to Predict Static American Sign Language Letters

IEEE ICRA 2022 Workshop on Human-Centered Autonomy in Medical Robotics · Philadelphia, PA

Sonomyography prosthesis control

Towards Sonomyography-Based Real-Time Control of Powered Prosthesis Grasp Synergies

IEEE EMBC 2020 · Montreal, Canada

Volunteer Advising / Mentorship

Please feel free to contact me for advice on graduate school, research versus industry, life as an international student, and career guidance. As someone who has mentored and guided students since my undergraduate years, I am particularly interested in supporting individuals from traditionally underrepresented communities in STEM, including LGBTQIA+, POC, and first-generation college students. Do not hesitate to reach out; I will be happy to assist in any way I can.