Shashank Dammalapati

M.Sc in Geodetic Engineering (Mobile Sensing and Robotics) @ IGG, University of Bonn

Hello, I am a Master's student at the University of Bonn, advised by Xingguang Zhong, Yue Pan, and Cyrill Stachniss. Prior to this, I completed my B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, where I was advised by SK Saha.

My current research interests focus on developing next-generation SLAM systems that construct hierarchical and composable 3D scene representations. I plan to explore point-based methods as a unified framework for modeling static structures, articulated objects, and dynamic flow, informed by generative and multimodal priors. The goal is to create adaptive and interpretable world models that support robust, generalizable, and task-driven robotic perception.

Research Interests

  • SLAM
  • Scene Representations
  • 3D/4D Scene Understanding
  • World Models and Spatial AI

Featured Projects

"I have a dream to map the entire world."

I am strongly influenced by the fundamental laws of mechanics (Igor Irodov) and philosophical thoughts on language and representation (Ludwig Wittgenstein).

News

Jul 2025
Graduated! Completed Masters in Geodetic Engineering (Mobile Sensing and Robotics) from the University of Bonn.
Aug 2024
Attended the IEEE RAS Summer School on Multi-Robot Systems in Prague, Czech Republic.
Jan 2023
Started working as a Student Assistant at Stachniss Lab, University of Bonn.
Oct 2022
Started Masters in Geodetic Engineering at University of Bonn, Germany.
Sep 2021
Worked as a Research and Entrepreneurship Intern at IHFC.
June 2021
Graduated! Completed B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Delhi, India.

Publications

Development of an Autonomous UAV Integrated with a Manipulator and a Soft Gripper

Debadrata Sarkar, Aman Arora, Soumen Sen, Sree SS Katta, D Shashank, M Rohan, Subir K Saha

13th Asian Control Conference (ASCC), 2022

Aeromechanical Design and Analysis of H-Drone Configuration

D Dwarakanathan, S Raja, P Shanmugam, D Shashank, M Rohan, C Selvam, R Sanjeeth Kevin, Sree SS Katta, Subir K Saha

13th Asian Control Conference (ASCC), 2022

3D pure pursuit guidance of drones for autonomous precision landing

Kaushal Kishore, Sagar Dalai, Yash Jangir, Samarth Singh, M Rohan, D Shashank, Sree SS Katta, Subir K Saha

13th Asian Control Conference (ASCC), 2022

Projects

GS-SLAM

RGBD SLAM for Dynamic Scenes

Detected dynamic points in a Keypoint SLAM and used SAM2 to segment and track open-set objects for improved SLAM robustness.

Shape and Motion Estimation

Shape and Motion Estimation

Leveraged DeepSDF as shape priors to enhance 3D object detection, leading to improved motion estimation and shape completion in autonomous driving scenarios.

EWOK Planner

EWOK Planner for PX4

Integration of EWOK trajectory planner with PX4 autopilot for autonomous drone navigation in cluttered environments.

Aerial Manipulator

Aerial Manipulator System

Development of an autonomous UAV with integrated manipulator.

3D Campus Model

IIT Delhi 3D Campus Model

Designed and prototyped a drone system to capture aerial images and generate a 3D model of the IIT Delhi campus using photogrammetry.

RoboMuse

RoboMuse 5.0

Worked on a differential ground robot with ROS navigation stack and SLAM for autonomous navigation in indoor environments.

DISA Drone

Detection of Motor Failure in Drones

Detecting motor/propeller failure in a quadcopter using motor RPM and IMU data.

competitions

Achievements in national competitions

BNAC 2019 Competition

BNAC 2019 - 1st Place

National Aeromodelling Competition

Won 1st place in the National Aeromodelling Competition conducted by Boeing at IIT Madras, India in 2019. Our team emerged victorious out of 100+ teams that participated in this competition.

AMTI Mathematical Olympiad

AMTI 2013 - All India Rank 11

Mathematical Olympiad

Secured All India Rank 11 in the Mathematical Olympiad conducted by The Association of Mathematics Teachers of India (AMTI).

Personal Aphorisms

A collection of thoughts, reflections, and philosophical musings

Metaphysics (About Reality)

  • Particles are the Objects, Forces are the Plugins, and World as a Simulation.
  • Manipulating knowledge (let's say thinking) is indirectly manipulating some physical system.
  • Metaphysical Hypothesis: You are a computer.
  • Thinking is Simulating. Experiencing is Living.
  • Space has no grid.
  • Metaphysics is the presumption from which you derive all other studies!
  • Resistance is your true self.
  • Some phenomena are explained by cause, and some by purpose!
  • All prophets fail.
  • Traveling through space, time, and memories.
  • Imagine food with morally bad taste.
  • Properties of "I" are too local and temporal for it to be eternal and independent of physical nature.
  • There is no "I", There is no "You", We are just hosts of information, ideas, and genes.
  • I am a bunch of ideas.
  • I don't have ideas, ideas have me.
  • Some ideas are more viral than others.
  • Ideas influence ideas.
  • Brains and humans are just containers.
  • Nature, we are.
  • I am this world.
  • Little closer to nothingness.
  • Illusions aren't necessarily bad.
  • Not who I was, not who I will be. I am is.

Language (About its nature and application)

  • Philosophy exists in language space and hence a philosopher should first understand language. Language is applied. Language is probabilistic.
  • A Probabilistic trust model is peaceful for the mind.
  • Language, like light, is a physical stimulus. What we make out of it are abstractions.
  • One needs more phrases to narrow down to a meaning/object that the set of phrases (or what the thinker) identifies.
  • We see a color! No! We just experience a color! A color is just an EM wave, a precursor, a cause of the experience which we call color.
  • Every visual imagination is preceded by a sentence/word formation. Imagine a laughing carrot.
  • This world is just language and logic.
  • Language is just complicated action.
  • I consider every word I utter and every sentence I write equivalent to any other action I perform. Like walking and kicking a bag.
  • I do not care how people understand my thoughts, I only deeply care about how accurately language can represent my thoughts. It, which I care about, is a problem of my own.
  • I have an unbearable love for language and meaning. I feel it now as I form sentences. I deeply desire to engage in conversations. Conversations that never happened.
  • Good and Evil are just categories and they don't have meaning at all.
  • The totality of facts.
  • I think we rely a lot on language to propagate and represent knowledge.
  • The reality "continues" to exist.
  • I think solutions to problems of love, philosophy, and truth can be found by understanding language!
  • All meaning comes with language and signs!
  • There are no facts only interpretations!
  • A fact is a language sentence and hence only a representation. Fact Vs Reality.
  • Learn your language game's rules!
  • Language is the most important part of my life.
  • Language is the world.
  • Choice of words merely endorses thoughts. But they dictate the direction of the message.
  • Paradoxes are problems of the language, not reality.
  • Language is not blind.
  • The last thing is clarity.
  • Minds are private, not their expressions to the world.
  • People project their meaning into texts.

Logic

  • Is logic the same in all simulations?
  • Is reasoning necessary if there is only a single being?
  • Macro is a thinking style.
  • Nothing is original except the whole!
  • Bachelors are unmarried.
  • The idea is to out-philosophize others.

Value, Ethics, and Aesthetics

  • I consider a drone as an organism.
  • I need a computer that can render love for me.
  • Access to storage is empowerment!
  • What makes beauty appealing is that it is useful.
  • My ethics will only ever be direct deductions from my metaphysics. All other accepted ethics will be rejected. Like that of Schopenhauer!
  • I want to understand how we assume value in things.
  • Bias is different but love is same.
  • There is no meaning in this world. There are 2 cars and 5 pens in this world.
  • I think it is only in the mind that one can love.
  • Government cannot control morals.
  • Value arises from the contract. No value ever is not from some contract.
  • Respect is a protocol? or a feeling?
  • The alien within.
  • It might be the case that God created us, but I don't think he cares about our morality.
  • Value requires a valuer.
  • What is not boring? Is art boring?
  • Not just humanity. Consciousness first.
  • Practice more of what is important, what you love.
  • It is very hard to focus without a purpose.
  • You are my stakeholder.

Epistemology (About Knowledge)

  • Learning and Knowledge are personal!
  • Education is all about equipping with tools.
  • My belief is my knowledge.
  • A Probabilistic trust model is peaceful for the mind.
  • Part of the truth is disliking, liking, action, and inaction.
  • I don't know if any of the things I say are correct at all! I'm afraid, I don't even seem to understand the nature of correctness at all.
  • Did I ever prove anything in my life?
  • I don't know anything for certain; this feeling is heavy, yet I will act.
  • Is truth always inspiring?
  • Truth is important.
  • Nonsense is everywhere.
  • It is our duty (and is an advantage) to support the truth.
  • Some truths are more important than food and money.

Critical and Social

  • I love how world states and problems can be mathematically put.
  • How to frame society as a robotic system?
  • Society: Multiple intelligent swarms with plenty of independent self-centric agents in them.
  • Can unaddressed memories in a computer give it consciousness?
  • Plan in language space and execute in action space.
  • I have a dream to map the entire world in 3D and 4Pi.
  • Inference to the best explanation.
  • Each moment/iteration asks itself, what it should, where it should get its arguments from?... Is our brain discretely functioning with time?
  • Commands are programs written by someone else.
  • Obviously, output depends on the tools used.
  • It is empowerment to be able to do shit on the web!
  • It's not about learning the popular tools, it is about finding the right tools for your use case.
  • Education is a tool, but every time you use it, it doesn't wear but grows.
  • My child will be a cyborg.
  • To accelerate human evolution.
  • Dextrousity gave us cognition.
  • Technological borders Nation-state borders.
  • Democratizing every industry.
  • When you learn a language, you change.
  • With every word I type/say, I am feeling conscious that I'm using language.
  • I think it is good for individuals to take the responsibility of learning certain knowledge whether or not it is useful for them personally.
  • We shouldn't be dismissive of bad ideas.
  • Games create strong social bonds.
  • Only compute-intensive philosophies should try to reach more people for their brains.
  • A nation may brand itself as a unifying agent, but all nations, like all classes/categories, are divided by definition.
  • My eyes look like that of a dead man. They are dull. But I like them. They show me this world and art.
  • Metaphysics is the presumption from which you derive all other studies!
  • I want to have good conversations, I want to be fearless.
  • I am a free man.
  • In company, you kill yourself.
  • I don't live in the real world. So, I can't thrive by usual standards.
  • Freedom from god, freedom from bonds, and freedom from the state are liberation from the external.
  • Standing for oneself is the sexiest quality.
  • What is the difference between a nation and a social group?
  • I think honesty helps you appreciate other honest people.
  • I deeply desire to engage in conversations. Conversations that never happened.
  • I still stand on the fact that doing philosophy is a luxury.
  • Why nihilists won't suicide?
  • In fact, everything is just a category/class. They don't have meaning at all. LED, Bus, Man, Taste,...
  • I think we rely a lot on language to propagate and represent knowledge.
  • The reality "continues" to exist.
  • I think I should fix the language.
  • There is no freedom in the true sense.
  • I think it is important to listen to everyone's voice.
  • One cannot understand what is wrong.
  • Some people can believe the wrong and also expect you to believe it. This isn't impossible. They are sometimes mere sensors without a sensor model of the world.
  • Breaking laws makes bad laws clear.
  • Philosophy is not a belief system nor is it a knowledge system.
  • Present your self-fatal questions!
  • There's nothing unique about being the world's tallest building.
  • Some things are to be given to the most dedicated, not necessarily to the best!
  • How important is it to understand the rules of society?
  • Missed duties are more daunting than missed opportunities.
  • As long as I can afford quality food, health, shelter, internet, and time for friends I am cool. I can just imagine other expensive shit!
  • I don't want to pay for any education!
  • The foundation of any system = exploitation.
  • Bring meme culture to political relevance.
  • Need for Alien Policy.
  • All that is needed to do great work is to do what you love.
  • For me, India is a territory, not a specific people.
  • The healthiest are the smartest.
  • I have nothing to do with any religion.
  • One should be conscious enough to figure out if they are in a dilemma. I go through multiple of them each day. Some noticed, some not.
  • Altruists have no empathy for themselves.
  • Common sense is social sense.
  • Alienation is a real problem. Try not to alienate others and try to familiarize yourself with alien situations.
  • Sociological Imagination can help you appreciate that you are a part of society.
  • Religion is an imagination.
  • Any intelligent trade is a win-win.
  • Self-interest prevails.
  • Overhauling the status quo/society completely is not as hard as it immediately strikes. We are just changing the present, not the whole history behind it. Ex: Question of God.
  • Everyone should become an entrepreneur.
  • Without regular affirmation, you will lose your patriotism.
  • Curb hatred, and that's all.
  • People can be freer without guns in their hands.
  • You are simply your society/nation.
  • No one's classical unless they are taught to be.
  • Social will is created.
  • Not yielded by the weight of society, I am a little strange.
  • Labs are prisons.
  • I can neither promise rights nor force duties in and on any society. I am just a developing animal.
  • Love the people of your nation.
  • If you are classical, you are not understanding yourself.
  • I am not just me but my society, and I am selfish.
  • Consciousness, I wish.
  • A good teacher protects his students from his own influence.
  • Once you start, you start enjoying.
  • I plan only to understand what's important to me.
  • I think people need better feedback.
  • Selfish gene.
  • One day I want to be able to buy time.
  • Apples, peaches, pears, and plums are all from the Rose family.
  • IIT made me feel national; Hyderabad made me feel national; Telugu made me feel national; Even Technology made me feel national. But, Hinduism couldn't. Because it never really mattered to me as an INDIVIDUAL.
  • Houses protect humans from other animals. Society protects one human from the other humans. Treaties protect one society from the other. Only Culture can protect society from itself and its wrongdoings.
  • Humans are not the center.

Other Interests

Photography and other creative pursuits

Hobby Aeromodelling

I worked on designing and building of multiple drones, including fixed-wing aircraft and quadcopters.

Photography

Photos captured with Google Pixel

Reading Lists

SLAM & Computer Vision

Introduction to Visual SLAM

by Xiang Gao and Tao Zhang

From Theory to Practice

SLAM Handbook

by SLAM Handbook Contributors

From Localization and Mapping to Spatial Intelligence.

Contact

Feel free to reach out for collaborations, research discussions, or just to connect!

Email: shashankyld@gmail.com

Location: Bonn, Germany