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I will be attending ASPLOS 2025 at Rotterdam, Netherlands to present our Quetzal paper!

Research Vision

I design computer systems that work in extremely resource-constrained environments. My research interests span across the stack -- from programming constructs and scheduling policies to novel computer architectures and building practical systems.
I am currently working on building cutting-edge computer architectures for implantable brain-computer interfaces (BCIs). Intracortical BCIs can directly monitor electrical signals produced by the human brain, which can then be decoded for several key medical applications, like interpreting motion intent in tetraplegic individuals and seizure prevention in Epilepsy patients.
During my PhD, I designed energy-harvesting computers, which could collect and process sensor data while being powered entirely from clean, environmental energy. I developed performance models, optimization tools and schedulers for energy-harvesting devices, while building real-world, to-scale prototypes which work across dynamically variable energy-harvesting conditions.

Publications

• Quetzal: Energy-aware Scheduling and Input Buffer Overflow Prevention for Energy-harvesting Systems Link PDF
  Harsh Desai, Xinye Wang, Brandon Lucia | ASPLOS 2025
  


• Pipestitch: An energy-minimal dataflow architecture with lightweight threads Link PDF
  Nathan Serafin, Souradip Ghosh, Harsh Desai, Nathan Beckmann, Brandon Lucia | MICRO 2023


• Culpeo: An Architectural Charge Management Interface for Energy-Harvesting Systems Link PDF
  Emily Ruppel, Milijana Surbatovich, Harsh Desai, Kiwan Maeng, Brandon Lucia | MICRO 2022


• Camaroptera: A Long-Range Image Sensor with Local Inference for Remote Sensing Applications Link PDF
  Harsh Desai, Matteo Nardello, Davide Brunelli, Brandon Lucia | TECS 2022


• Computational nanosatellite constellations: Opportunities and challenges Link PDF
  Brandon Lucia, Brad Denby, Zachary Manchester, Harsh Desai, Emily Ruppel, Alexei Colin | GetMobile 2021


• A Power-Aware Heterogeneous Architecture Scaling Model for Energy-Harvesting Computers Link PDF
  Harsh Desai, and Brandon Lucia | CAL 2020
  


• Camaroptera: a Batteryless Long-Range Remote Visual Sensing System Link PDF
  Matteo Nardello, Harsh Desai, Davide Brunelli, and Brandon Lucia | ENSsys 2019


• Powering Pipeline Monitoring Sensors Using Locally Available Energy Link PDF
  Harshit Shukla, Kalyan R. Piratla, Harsh Desai, and Jacob Sorber | Pipelines 2019


• Evaluation of Energy Harvesting Potential in Water Pipelines to Power Sustainable Monitoring Systems Link PDF
  Harshit Shukla, Harsh Desai, Jacob Sorber, and Kalyan R. Piratla | Construction Research Congress 2018