Tony Jacob

My interest is in autonomy for marine robots for the advancement of polar and oceanographic sciences. As a graduate student at University of Rhode Island, my focus is on AUV-based iceberg mapping and navigation. To that end, I employ a systems-level approach toward autonomous systems spanning sensors, computer networks, guidance, navigation and mapping methods. This is my self-hosted webpage (served over Tailscale), recording my research and career. Feel free to look around!

Google Scholar / LinkedIn / Medium

Research

AQ²UASIM -V2: Advancing Quantitative and QUAlitative SIMulators for marine applications

This workshop aims to encourage innovative research into simulation environments to provide enough realism to be invaluable for system design, risk assessment, and performance optimization.

Michele Grimaldi, Ignacio Carlucho, Dr. Markus Buchholz, Dr. Mabel Zhang, Tony Jacob, Prof. Fausto Ferreira, Carlo Cernicchiaro, Sumer Tuncay, Sebastian Realpe, Hayat Rajani, Dr. Jungseok Hong, Carter Noh
IROS, Pittsburgh, 2026
website

Design, development and field tests of an ASV-AUV system for iceberg mapping

This late breaking result showcases preliminary results of the iceberg mapping expedition in Fogo Island, Newfoundland, CA.

Tony Jacob, Lin Zhao, Mingxi Zhou, Yuewei Fu, Cyril Burke, Akira Hall, Paolo Stegagno, Chris Roman, Crew of Kellys Quest
IROS, Pittsburgh, 2026
paper / video / poster / press

Active Sonar-Driven Iceberg Wall Following Path Planner for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles

Non-fixed, non-inertial path planning for AUV based iceberg circumnavigation

Tony Jacob, Mingxi Zhou
Oceans, Halifax, 2024 (Student Poster Competition Winner)
paper / video / poster / slides / thesis / press

Towards Modular and Accessible AUV Systems

Open hardware and software for underwater robotics

Mingxi Zhou,Farhang Naderi, Yuewei Fu, Tony Jacob, Lin Zhao, Manavi Panjnani, Chengzhi Yuan, William McConnell, Emir Cem Gezer
AUV Boston, 2024
paper

Projects

Object and Depth tracking using a Kalman Filter

Did this project for my Probablistic Robotics class. Developed ROS nodes for YOLO-v5 and MiDAS to track the (x,y,z) of a vehicle in motion using a Kalman Filter in Forza Horizon 4.

2023
video

Tic-Tac-Toe Gantry Robot

A robot that can play tic-tac-toe with you. Utilized image processing techniques and GCode to understand the play space and actuate the gantry.

Tony Jacob, Vinay Lanka
2022
video / code

ROS Simulation of a Wind Turbine

Developed the URDF and simulated wind physics as well as actuation of a wind turbine in Gazebo using the ROS framework.

2021
video / code

ADAS System for Pre-Crash Safety

Developed a pipeline for an ADAS system that enabled Pre-Crash Safety using Lyft's l5 Prediction Dataset and showcased a deployable ROS model for Monocular Depth Estimation for 3D object detection

Tony Jacob, Krishna Prasad Bhatt
VIT Vellore, 2020 (Winner, Hackamotive'20 conducted by Elektrobit & VIT Vellore)
video / slides

Art + Media

Et tu est Monet

Focusing on the characteristics of impressionism art style where the subtle nuances of the environment is revealed in high detail, the exhibit allows you (the audience) to reveal Monet's perspective on the spatial and temporal elements of imagery as you move around and spend time with the Haystacks of Claude Monet.

Tony Jacob, Farhang Naderi, Gery Vargas
Rhode Island School of Design, 2024 (Visathon '24 Exhibit)
website

Pigeons as Bombs (dramatized)

A short documentary on BF Skinner's Project Pigeon

Tony Jacob, Jonathan Jacob
2024
video

Ode to Bangalore Skies

I used to watch the sunsets from the terrace of my apartment in Bangalore. For all the people that had the opportunity to share this experience, this is for you.

2022
video

IEEE Podcast Launch Video

Launch video for The TechLoop Podcast by IEEE-VIT, an organisation consisting of undergrad students, where we have a conversation with personalities from different domains. We would've written a longer description about it but even we're not sure.

Tony Jacob, Madhav Rajesh, Gagan Varma, Sunny Chakraborti
Vellore Institute of Technology, 2020
video / website