Human-centered robotics — healthcare, mobility, and human–robot interaction.
Featured on NHK WORLD-JAPAN · James Dyson Award 2025 Japan Runner-up
Teleoperated systems and compact, intrinsically safe instruments that put kinesthetic feedback back into robot-assisted surgery — bringing surgeon and patient closer together.
Explore medical & surgical robotics →Wearable and world-grounded haptic devices that render force and texture, so that teleoperation, surgical training and mixed reality feel like handling the real thing.
Explore haptics & human–robot interaction →3D-printed soft actuators, adaptive grippers and compliant mechanisms for manipulation that is safe around people by construction, not by control.
James Dyson Award 2025 Japan Runner-up — FAYRA, a foldable soft arm for wheelchair users
Explore soft manipulators & actuators →Vibrotactile driving assistance for power wheelchairs, prosthetics, exoskeletons and rehabilitation — human-centered systems for mobility.
NHK WORLD-JAPAN Our wheelchair-assistance research in the documentary Where We Call Home
Explore AI-powered & assistive robotics →Dr. Sajid Nisar is an Associate Professor at Kyoto University of Advanced Science and Principal Investigator of the NISAR Laboratory. He earned his PhD (Dr.Eng.) at Kyoto University as a MEXT scholar and JSPS Doctoral Fellow, and trained at Stanford's Center for Design Research.
He works on human-centered robotics (surgical robots, haptics, soft robotics and assistive systems) with support from JSPS, AMED, the New York Academy of Sciences and the U.S. National Academy of Medicine. He also holds an MBA from KUAS (2026), which informs the lab's growing work in commercialization and student-led ventures.
He serves as Associate Editor for IEEE ICRA and IEEE/RSJ IROS, and his honors include the IEEE World Haptics Best Associate Editor Award and the KUAS Best Researcher Award.
We welcome motivated students and researchers in robotics, mechatronics, haptics, and AI. Prospective Master's / Ph.D. students, research interns, and undergraduate project students are encouraged to reach out.
From the lab: Kyorabo, a research-collaborator matching app built by our students — kyorabo.com →
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