Akash Patel, founder
Built by the person who flew the missions
Akash Patel is a postdoctoral researcher in Robotics and AI at Luleå University of Technology. His PhD, defended in November 2025, built and field-proved autonomy for aerial and legged robots in GPS-denied environments: underground mines, caves, and planetary analogs. That work is the core of Sarthi's stack.
20
peer-reviewed publications
267
citations
10
h-index
3
EU research programs
Published in IEEE T-RO, ICRA, IEEE Aerospace, IFAC, JINT, JRAS · verifiable on Google Scholar
The field record
Fully autonomous aerial exploration and mapping of a natural lava tube in Iceland: more than 1 km explored on a single mission architecture, no GPS and no pilot.
Autonomous mapping and inspection of rockfall zones after a roof collapse in an operating iron-ore mine in northern Sweden.
Fully autonomous vertical mine-shaft exploration with high-fidelity 3D reconstruction, demonstrated in real underground conditions within the NexGen SIMS program.
Autonomous post-blast gas-measurement missions in underground mines, published as journal work: crews re-enter on data, not on a fixed clock.
Years of underground exploration and waypoint-navigation trials with Nordic mining companies, a mining-equipment manufacturer, and a European potash operator.
The research programs behind the stack
PERSEPHONE
Horizon Europe, 2023 to present
Work-package lead for multi-robot deployment: collaborative mapping, ore detection, and task scheduling in abandoned mines.
NexGen SIMS
Horizon 2020, 2020 to 2024
Robotics and AI team: autonomous robotized mine-shaft inspection by drone, demonstrated at full autonomy underground.
IlluMINEation
Horizon 2020, 2020 to 2023
Institutional lead for autonomous exploration and mapping with drones for inspection and first-response tasks in underground mines.
In the founder's words
“My research career has been about making robots self-reliant in places that offer them nothing: no position, no signal, no map. We proved it works, in a lava tube in Iceland and in ground that had just collapsed in a working mine.
I am building Sarthi because the industries that need that capability most are still sending people instead. I want to be a founder who solves real problems and makes industries safer, not just a software developer with a clever planner.”
The head of the LTU Robotics and AI research group supports the company in an advisory role. Sarthi is currently a solo-founder venture; that fact and its mitigations are stated plainly to investors rather than hidden.
The record is public and checkable.