Adnan Saood

Robotics engineer · PhD candidate, ENSTA (IP Paris) · Palaiseau

Robotics engineer & researcher.

From embedded hardware and ROS2 control to validated experiments with people. Mechatronics engineer and PhD candidate at IP Paris, with a medical-robotics patent already licensed to industry.

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About

I trained as a mechatronics engineer (5-year diploma, Tishreen University), then specialized in medical robotics at the University of Strasbourg. As a research engineer at CNRS ICube, I led the robotic side of a focused-ultrasound platform for non-invasive drug delivery to the brain; the work was patented and licensed to Therasonic, where I now consult.

Since 2024 I've been doing a PhD at ENSTA (IP Paris) on tactile sensing and physical human–robot interaction, still hands-on with the hardware: sensors, firmware, ROS 2 drivers and experiments.

  • NowPhD candidate · U2IS, ENSTA ENSTA
  • Now (Industry)Engineering consultant · Therasonic
  • Past experienceResearch engineer · CNRS ICube, Strasbourg ICubeCNRS
  • StudiedM2 Medical Robotics · Univ. of Strasbourg Universite de Strasbourg
  • Engineering DegreeMechatronics
  • Based inPalaiseau · Île-de-France
  • LanguagesEnglish · French · Arabic
  • AvailableApril 2027

Timeline

2026

2025

2024

2023

2022

  • Positions Research engineer, ICube Led the robotic side of the focused-ultrasound platform: optimisation-based coverage path planning and the control pipeline of an industrial manipulator for medical procedures.
  • Positions Master's thesis intern, ICube Robotic assistance for blood–brain barrier opening with focused ultrasound, supervised by Jonathan Vappou and Florent Nageotte.
  • Projects Robot for blood–brain barrier opening Focused-ultrasound platform on a UR5 with ROS 2 and NDI optical tracking; later patented and licensed to Therasonic.
  • Projects NDI tracking driver for ros2_control Open-source driver for NDI Polaris and Aurora: sub-millimetre 6-DoF poses at up to 60 Hz.

2021

  • Education M2 Medical Robotics (HealthTech) Master's at the University of Strasbourg, graduated 14.43/20 (Mention Bien).
  • Awards ITI HealthTech excellence fellowship Interdisciplinary Thematic Institute, Excellence Initiative of the University of Strasbourg.
  • Teaching & community Project supervisor, National Center for the Distinguished Supervised academic projects of gifted high-school students.
  • Projects Swarm motion planning from fluid dynamics Engineering thesis: a motion planner for non-holonomic robot swarms based on the Navier–Stokes equations, tested on a 15-robot platform with my own firmware.
  • Publications COVID-19 lung CT image segmentation using deep learning methods: U-Net versus SegNet BMC Medical Imaging

2020

  • Projects COVID-19 lung CT segmentation U-Net against SegNet for segmenting infected tissue; the paper topped BMC Medical Imaging's trending list.

2019

  • Teaching & community Vice-president, SCS Robotics Club Organised regional and international robotics competitions and taught embedded systems, C/C++ and MATLAB for robotics.
  • Awards 1st place, Senior SUMO robotics Annual robotics competition of the Syrian Computer Society.

2018

2017

  • Teaching & community Physics committee, Syrian Scientific Olympiad Member of the scientific committee for physics, preparing the next generation of olympiad students.
  • Awards 2nd place, ULFG2 robotics contest Regional robotics competition.

2016

  • Education Mechatronics engineering diploma Five-year engineering degree at Tishreen University: 168 credit hours, graduated 80.23/100 (Mention Très Bien), on a Distinction and Creativity Agency scholarship.
  • Education High-school graduation Scientific baccalaureate at the National Center for the Distinguished, Damascus, in the 99.94th percentile nationally. Before that: Syria's team at the 46th International Physics Olympiad (2015) and third in the National Physics Olympiad (2014).

Selected work

Things I've built, measured and shipped.

All projects
Robotics softwarehid_ros2: a universal USB-HID hardware interface for ros2_controlAuthor of an open-source ros2_control hardware interface that connects any USB-HID device (Teensy, ESP32, STM32, custom sensors) to ROS 2 from a YAML file, with no C++ to write. Presented at ROSCon FR 2025. open sourceTactile sensingDesigned, built and validated a tactile sensor array embedded in a soft silicone substrate for humanoid hands, the hardware core of my PhD.Tactile Array for Humanoid Hand to Enable Socio-Affective TouchDesigned, built and validated a tactile sensor array embedded in a soft silicone substrate for humanoid hands, the hardware core of my PhD.read moreMedical robotics & imagingRobot-assisted focused-ultrasound platform (UR5, ROS 2, NDI optical tracking) for drug delivery across the blood–brain barrier. Patented, and licensed to Therasonic in 2026.Robotic Assistance for BBB OpeningRobot-assisted focused-ultrasound platform (UR5, ROS 2, NDI optical tracking) for drug delivery across the blood–brain barrier. Patented, and licensed to Therasonic in 2026.read moreRobotics softwareROS 2 / ros2_control driver for NDI Polaris and Aurora medical tracking systems: sub-millimetre 6-DoF poses at up to 60 Hz for surgical and rehabilitation robotics (ICube Robotics, open source).NDI Systems ROS2 DriverROS 2 / ros2_control driver for NDI Polaris and Aurora medical tracking systems: sub-millimetre 6-DoF poses at up to 60 Hz for surgical and rehabilitation robotics (ICube Robotics, open source). open source

Capabilities

What I bring to a team.

01 / 04

Robot systems & control

Manipulator control, trajectory and coverage path planning and optimisation, taken from simulation to the real robot.

ROS 2ros2_controlUR5Franka Pandapath planningoptimisation

02 / 04

Sensors, embedded & hardware

Tactile sensor arrays, embedded C firmware, PCB and CAD, and the drivers that bring new hardware into ROS 2.

C/C++embedded firmwareUSB-HIDAltiumSolidWorkstactile sensors

03 / 04

Medical robotics

Robot-assisted focused ultrasound and medical-grade optical tracking. The work was patented and licensed to Therasonic, where I consult.

focused ultrasoundNDI trackingmedical imagingpatent

04 / 04

Human–robot interaction & data

Tactile perception, haptic interfaces and controlled user studies, with the signal processing and deep learning behind them.

user studiessignal processingdeep learningPythonMATLAB

Gentler machines

PhD story

My PhD: teaching robots the language of touch.

A humanoid hand with a silicone tactile skin, models that turn pressure into meaning, and user studies of how a robot should shake hands. The whole story, chapter by chapter.

Read the PhD story
  1. 01Build a tactile skin
  2. 02Make sense of touch
  3. 03Test it with people
1medical-robotics patent, licensed to Therasonic (2026)
8first-author papers, from ICRA to BMC Medical Imaging
4+years of robotics R&D at ICube, ENSTA and Therasonic
3open-source ROS 2 drivers: hid_ros2, NDI tracking, PaXini

Publications

Selected papers.

All publications
  1. ICRA2026
    ICRAConference

    Contributing Factors in Human-Robot Handshake: Compliance, Hand Grip, and Synchrony

    Adnan Saood, Adriana Tapus

    2026 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) · 2026

    BibTeX
    @inproceedings{saood2026handshake,
  title={Contributing Factors in Human-Robot Handshake: Compliance, Hand Grip, and Synchrony},
  author={Saood, Adnan and Tapus, Adriana},
  booktitle={2026 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)},
  year={2026}
}
  2. Patent2024
    Patent

    Focused Ultrasound Sonication with Mechanical and Electronic Steering along a Computed Trajectory

    Adnan Saood, Jonathan Vappou, Florent Nageotte, Benoit Larrat

    2024 · EP Patent EP4445859A1; licensed by Therasonic, a CEA Neurospin spin-off, in 2026

    BibTeX
    @misc{saood2024focused,
  title={FOCUSED ULTRASOUND SONICATION WITH MECHANICAL AND ELECTRONIC STEERING ALONG A COMPUTED TRAJECTORY},
  author={SAOOD, Adnan and VAPPOU, Jonathan and NAGEOTTE, Florent and LARRAT, Benoit},
  year={2024},
  note={EP Patent EP4445859A1; licensed by Therasonic, a CEA Neurospin spin-off, in 2026}
}
  3. Journal2021
    Journal

    COVID-19 lung CT image segmentation using deep learning methods: U-Net versus SegNet

    Adnan Saood, Iyad Hatem

    BMC Medical Imaging · 2021

    DOI
    BibTeX
    @article{saood2021covid,
  title={COVID-19 lung CT image segmentation using deep learning methods: U-Net versus SegNet},
  author={Saood, Adnan and Hatem, Iyad},
  journal={BMC Medical Imaging},
  volume={21},
  pages={1--10},
  year={2021},
  publisher={BioMed Central},
  doi={10.1186/s12880-020-00529-5}
}

News All news →

Jul 15, 2026Co-Organizing Beyond Words 2 at ICSR 2026
Jul 1, 2026Focused-Ultrasound Patent Licensed to Therasonic
Jun 15, 2026Fédération Demeny Vaucanson Research Prize Awarded

From the blog All posts →

Oct 2, 2026Steering a Robot by Touch: What 12 First-Time Users Taught Us About Tactile Guidance
Jul 25, 2026Beyond Words 2: What We Learned Organizing ICSR 2026's Touch Workshop
Jul 15, 2026From Master's Thesis to Licensed Technology: How Our Focused-Ultrasound Robot Became Part of Therasonic