Papers and preprints.

Published work, manuscripts and papers under review.

1. Manuscript · IEEE RA-L

   Joint-Embedding Predictive Pretraining for Tactile Shape Recognition During Manipulation on a Simulated Membrane Surface

   Self-supervised tactile learning

   Preprint soonBibTeX
2. 
   IEEE ICRA 2027 · Under review

   Suspended-Fabric Robotic Manipulation Surfaces: Modelling, Design Space, and Multimodular Extension

   IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation

   Preprint ↗BibTeX
3. 
   IJRR · Under review

   Survey of Robotic Manipulation Surfaces: Challenges and Opportunities

   International Journal of Robotics Research

   Preprint ↗BibTeX
4. SAB 2026

   Scalable, Distributed Control of a Manipulation Surface with Emergent Properties

   18th International Conference on the Simulation of Adaptive Behavior, Germany

   DOI ↗Code ↗

   BibTeX

   @inproceedings{10.1007/978-3-032-39953-3_1,
     title = {Scalable, Distributed Control of a Manipulation Surface with Emergent Properties},
     booktitle = {From Animals to Animats 18},
     author = {Stoy, Kasper and Ingle, Pratik and Lambertsen, Jørn and Faíña, Andrés},
     editor = {Brock, Oliver and Krichmar, Jeffrey and Mengers, Vito},
     date = {2027},
     pages = {3--14},
     publisher = {Springer Nature Switzerland},
     location = {Cham},
     abstract = {Distributed manipulation surfaces promise scalable, parallel handling of many objects, but how to control them distributedly remains a challenging question. We address this on the MANTA-RAY distributed manipulation system where a fabric is suspended over a grid of pistons. We report on three contributions. First, a computationally efficient catenary-based simulation whose computational cost is independent of the surface size and in the worst case quadratic in the number of objects allowing for simulation at scale. Second, a strictly local control methodology based on a static control table and local sensing. Despite this locality, global behaviors work as designed and, further, we see emergent clustering behavior for which we did not explicitly design. Third, with a priority-based extension, the same controller produces letter formation (“SAB”) on a 7×15 grid-cell, 128-piston system with a 100/100 success rate. The results are a contribution to efficient simulation and large-scale control in the growing field of distributed manipulation surfaces.},
     isbn = {978-3-032-39953-3}
   }

5. arXiv:2601.21884

   Scalable Surface-Based Manipulation Through Modularity and Inter-Module Object Transfer

   With J. Lambertsen, K. Støy and A. Faíña

   arXiv ↗

   BibTeX

   @misc{ingle2026scalablesurfacebasedmanipulationmodularity,
     title={Scalable Surface-Based Manipulation Through Modularity and Inter-Module Object Transfer},
     author={Pratik Ingle and Jørn Lambertsen and Kasper Støy and Andres Faina},
     year={2026},
     eprint={2601.21884},
     archivePrefix={arXiv},
     primaryClass={cs.RO},
     url={https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.21884},
   }

6. IEEE CASE 2025

   Heterogeneous Object Manipulation on Nonlinear Soft Surface Through Linear Controller

   IEEE Conference on Automation Science and Engineering

   DOI ↗Video ↗Project page ↗

   BibTeX

   @INPROCEEDINGS{11163787,
     author={Ingle, Pratik and Støy, Kasper and Faiña, Andres},
     booktitle={2025 IEEE 21st International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (CASE)},
     title={Heterogeneous object manipulation on nonlinear soft surface through linear controller},
     year={2025},
     volume={},
     number={},
     pages={1780-1787},
     keywords={Training;Actuators;Shape;Soft robotics;Hardware;Fabrics;Robustness;Complexity theory;Trajectory;Surface texture;Manipulation;Soft Robot;Robotic Manipulation Surface},
     doi={10.1109/CASE58245.2025.11163787}}

7. IEEE RoboSoft 2025 · Highlight talk

   Soft Manipulation Surface With Reduced Actuator Density for Heterogeneous Object Manipulation

   IEEE International Conference on Soft Robotics

   DOI ↗Video ↗Project page ↗

   BibTeX

   @INPROCEEDINGS{11020841,
     author={Ingle, Pratik and Støy, Kasper and Faiña, Andres},
     booktitle={2025 IEEE 8th International Conference on Soft Robotics (RoboSoft)},
     title={Soft Manipulation Surface With Reduced Actuator Density For Heterogeneous Object Manipulation},
     year={2025},
     volume={},
     number={},
     pages={1-8},
     keywords={Meters;Hands;Actuators;Shape;Robot kinematics;Reinforcement learning;Soft robotics;Hardware;Reliability;Grippers;Manipulation;Soft Robot;Surface Manipulation;Robotic Manipulation Surface},
     doi={10.1109/RoboSoft63089.2025.11020841}}

8. ANTS 2024

   Moving Depot (MOD): An Efficient Depot Motion Strategy for Multi-Robot Foraging

   14th International Conference on Swarm Intelligence, Germany