Matthew Lisondra

I am currently a Researcher of Robotics at the University of Toronto Robotics Institute.

My research focuses on Robot Perception, Robot Learning, Computer Vision, Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM), Autonomous/Intelligent Systems Algorithms, High Framerate Processing Low-Power Unconventional Sensing, 3D Scene Representations and Embodied AI.

I am affiliated with the following research labs:

• Autonomous Systems and Biomechatronics Lab (ASB) directed by Dr. G. Nejat
• Robotics and Computer Vision Laboratory (RCVL) directed by Dr. S. Saeedi
• Haptics and Telerobotics Laboratory (HapTel) directed by Dr. K. Zareinia
• Ingenuity Labs Research Institute (with Dr. A. Wu)

Email  /  Curriculum Vitae (CV)  /  LinkedIn  /  Google Scholar

UofT Robotics Institute, University of Toronto PhD, Doctor of Philosophy (Mechanical Engineering)

• Focus: Robot Perception, Robot Learning, Computer Vision
• Leveraging LLM and VLM agents w/ Computer Vision for Robot Learning
• Research at the University of Toronto Robotics Institute
• Supervised by: Dr. G. Nejat of the ASB Lab

Robotics and Computer Vision Laboratory (RCVL) MASc, Master’s of Applied Science (Mechanical Engineering)

• Focus: Computer Vision and Visual-Inertial SLAM
• Designed the first 6-DOF Visual Inertial Odometry on FPSPs (BIT-VIO)
• Thesis Published, Presentation in Yokohama, Japan for IEEE 2024 ICRA
• Collaboration with Imperial College London and University of Manchester
• Supervised by: Dr. S. Saeedi of RCVL, Dr. K. Zareinia of HapTel Lab

Physics, University of Toronto HBSc, Honours Bachelor of Science (Physics and Computer Science)

• Focus: Robotic Mechanics, Probability, TS-Analysis, Computational Physics
• Research: Time Series Analysis on Global Temperature, Sea Level Pressure
• Research: Helium-Neon Laser Analysis (Reviewed by Dr. A. Vutha)
• Research: Percolation via Random Processes Monte Carlo, Porous Rock
• Collaborated with: Dr. D. Jones of APCM Group

Please find below a list of my select publications/works (in progress and by importance of work):

Forthcoming Contributions:

• 1) Language-Guided Service Robotics: A Comprehensive Survey on Foundation Models for Human-Robot Task Completion (In Progress)
• 2) PovNet+: A Deep Learning Architecture for Socially Assistive Robots to Learn and Assist with Multiple Activities of Daily Living (In Progress)
• 3) TCB-VIO: Tightly-Coupled Focal-Plane Binary-Feature Visual Inertial Odometry (In Progress)
• 4) Microplastics Classification and Size Estimation using High-frequency Focused Ultrasound (In Progress)
• 5) Design of a Robotic Haptic Device with Variable Stiffness for Finger Rehabilitation (In Progress)
• 6) Large-scale Distributed Heterogeneous Multiple-robot Localization and Mapping Dataset with Communication Constraints (In Progress)
• 7) Pick-and-Place for Language-Constrained Manipulation using Equivariance Networks and Neural Descriptor Fields (In Progress)
• 8) AnalogPedestrianNet: High Framerate Focal-Plane Sensor-Processor Pedestrian Tracking (In Progress)

Peer Reviewed Contributions:

Studied the usability and advantages of FPSPs to leverage a more accurate state estimation framework
Designed an algorithm for VIO using Focal-Plane Binary Features
Implemented the FPSP vision- IMU-fused estimation algorithm on a mobile device for offline and online real-world testing
Evaluate the performance, benchmarking against FPSP vision-alone and ground-truth data
Extensive study on the algorithmic execution timing/frame, accuracy, memory usage
and power consumption of the visual front-end processing performance on the FPSP

Presents a novel technique capable of generating geometric maps from WiFi signals
A novel algorithm that is capable of generating geometric maps using WiFi signals received from multiple routers
Benchmarking the WiFi-generated maps with Lidar-generated maps by comparing the area,
number of data points, RSSI prediction True/False setting, RSSI accuracy percentage, IOU and MSE scores
Evaluation on real-world collected from indoor spaces

Designed the first 6-DOF Visual Inertial Odometry on FPSPs (BIT-VIO)
Efficient VIO operating and correcting by loosely-coupled sensor-fusion iEKF at 300 FPS
using predictions from IMU measurements obtained at 400 Hz
Uncertainty propagation for BIT-VO's pose as it is based on binary-edge-based descriptor extraction
Extensive real-world comparison against BIT-VO, with ground-truth obtained using a motion capture system

• Reviewer (Journal) for ISJ 2025, IEEE Sensors Journal (ISJ) 2025
• Reviewer (Journal) for RA-L 2024, IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L) 2024
• Reviewer (Conference) for IROS 2024, IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)
• Reviewer (Conference) for ICRA 2024, International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 2024
• Reviewer (Conference) for IEEE CCECE 2023, 2023 Canadian Conference On Electrical and Computer Engineering
• Reviewer (Conference) for IROS 2023, IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)

I am affiliated with several teaching institutions, teaching Physics (Advanced) and Computer Science. Select students I have taught:

• H. Li
• L. Liang
• N. Feng
• R. Sun* (Multiple Scholarship Offers in Australia, England)
• W. Zheng
• A. Zhang
• A Huang* (Now at Berkeley Music School)
• B. Zheng
• B. Luo* (Full Scholarship Physics, University College London)
• B. Yang* (Now at King's College London)
• C. Yang* (Now at Durham University)
• F. Chen
• G. Ye* (Now at University of Hong Kong)
• J. Wu
• K. Sheng, Chuwen (Multiple University Offers)
• L. Lin
• N. Zhao* (Multiple University Offers in Business)
• N. Tian
• A. Pu
• D. Qiu
• M. Wang
• R. Zhang
• C. Zou
• Y. Caelon
• S. Yumo
• A. Ma
• A. Xu
• K. Chen
• F. Xin
• A. Yi Lan
• C. Yi
• F. Chen
• L. Li
• M. Di
• R. Zhang
• S. Fan

Thesis Mentoring/Guidance: Junseo Kim (Now at TUDelft Robotics)

Autonomous Truck Navigation with Trailer Integration via Natural Language Processing (NLP)

More information as well as students taught can be found on my Curriculum Vitae (CV).

Rosor Exploration

• Researcher - Robotics, Geoscientific UAVs and Drones
• Working on Development of Rosor's Active Terrain Following (ATR) System
• Currently: Now Led by H. A. Jafaar

Outside of Research, I do Filmmaking with Film Director Dinitha Vithanage and Film Editor Brandon Worden. We just recently presented our Feature-Film.