Senior Research Lead, Robotics/AI

Spirit Aerosystems

Biography

Bharath Rao is a Senior Reserach Lead with Spirit AeroSystems leading the R&T Future Factory research programs related autonomous manufacturing solutions.

Over the last decade, Bharath has focused on research and development of robotics and AI technologies to address longstanding aero industry challenges related to high-mix/low-volume production scenarios. Bharath is currently leading the development of an ambitious project to design a software/hardware platform for rapid deployment of autonomous robotic systems, powered by machine vision, AI, and augmented reality. Using this framework, he has led multiple application deployments at Spirit, delivering significant cost savings and improvement in quality metrics.

Prior to his current role, Bharath was a Engagement Manager with Infosys managing a portfolio of North American aerospace clients. As a technology consultant, he helped aerospace clients navigate the digital transformation journey, by identifying, solving, and deploying digital solutions driven by data analytics, AI, and automation.

Bharath Rao has a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Bangalore University and a Master’s degree in Industrial, Systems, and Manufacturing Engineering from Wichita State University. He has expert-level knowledge in the areas of Robotics, AI, Optimization, mathematical modeling, simulation, and software development – with a track record of deploying multiple solutions into production.

Bharath has published academic papers in reputed IEEE forums on problems related to robotic perception, object identification, natural language processing, and deep learning – with a focus on enabling robot autonomy in the manufacturing space.