Mandayam A. Srinivasan

Mandayam A. Srinivasan

Senior Research Scientist, Mechanical Engineering (Department of)

77 Massachusetts Avenue
Room 26-319
Cambridge, MA 02139

srini@mit.edu
617.253.2512

Dr. Mandaym A. Srinivasan is a principal investigator in the Research Laboratory of Electronics (RLE) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He received the B.E. from Bangalore University in 1975, the M.E. in aeronautical engineering from the Indian Institute of Science in 1977, and the M.S. and Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Yale University in 1979 and 1984 respectively. He joined RLE in 1989 as Research Scientist, and was promoted to Principal Research Scientist in MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering in 1992 and Senior Research Scientist in 2002.

Dr. Srinivasan conducts research on haptics, a rapidly emerging area concerned with the computation, cognition, and communication underlying touch interactions in humans and machines. To gain a deeper understanding of human haptics, he has conducted multidisciplinary investigations involving skin bionnechanics, neurophysiology, psychophysics, motor control, and computational models. To develop haptic machines that enable touch and feel in virtual reality, he has directed the design of electromechanical devices and rendering software, and conducted studies on the human perception of virtual objects under purely haptic and multisensory conditions. This work has led to the emergence of a new field of research, “computer haptics” (analogous to computer graphics) that is concerned with generating and displaying virtual objects tactually to the human user.

Dr. Srinivasan is leading several teams to develop tactile displays using micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS), simulators for hands-on training in medical procedures, and shared virtual environments where computer users interact with each other through visual as well as touch feedback. The results of this research are also beneficial to the rehabilitation of the hand, intelligent prosthesis design, and the development of autonomous robot hands.

Keywords

haptics, human-machine interaction, tactile perception, biomechanical mechanisms, computer-controlled electromechanical devices, hand therapy, intelligent prostheses design, autonomous robots, medical simulation