Team Members

Lotfi El Hafi, PhD, is the President & Founder of Coarobo GK, Japan, and a former Research Associate Professor at Ritsumeikan University, Japan. He received his MScEng in Mechatronics from the Université catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain), Belgium, in 2013, and his PhD in Engineering from the Nara Institute of Science and Technology (NAIST), Japan, in 2017, as a MEXT Scholar. He joined Ritsumeikan University as a Senior Researcher in 2017, became a Research Assistant Professor in 2019, and served as a Research Associate Professor from 2023 to 2026. His research interests include service robotics, artificial intelligence, and system integration, with a focus on multimodal interaction in extended reality. His work has earned several research awards, including the Best of IET and IBC 2016–2017 and the RSJ Excellent Research and Technology Award (2024), as well as the Best Paper Award at IEEE/SICE SII 2023, IEEE IRC 2024, and from RSJ Advanced Robotics (2025). He has also won numerous robotics competition prizes, including the 1st Place in the Airbus Shopfloor Challenge at IEEE ICRA 2016, the Finalist Prize in the Amazon Robotics Challenge 2017, and multiple 1st Place finishes in the WRS Future Convenience Store Challenge since 2018, including at IEEE/RSJ IROS 2022 and at the Osaka-Kansai Expo 2025. These achievements led to his appointment as a Specially Appointed Researcher of HSR Community by Toyota Motor Corporation from 2020 to 2022, and as a Research Advisor for Robotics Competitions at the Robotics Hub of Panasonic Corporation from 2019 to 2026. He is also an active member of RSJ and IEEE. Since 2026, he has dedicated himself to Coarobo GK, a company he founded in 2019 that now brings physical AI to real-world robots. Beyond his work, he is a devoted husband and father of three.

Gustavo Garcia is a Vice President & Founder of Coarobo GK. He concurrently serves as Chief Executive Officer of G-ROBO KK and as a Specially Appointed Associate Professor at The University of Osaka, Japan. From 2021 to 2026, he was a Research Associate Professor at Ritsumeikan University and a Research Advisor for Robotics Competitions at the Robotics Hub of Panasonic Corporation. He received his MEng and PhD degrees from the Nara Institute of Science and Technology (NAIST), Japan, in 2013 and 2016, respectively, and previously held a position as Assistant Professor in the Robotics Laboratory of the Division of Information Science at NAIST. He leads numerous research projects and teams in international robotics competitions, with achievements including 1st Place in the Airbus Shopfloor Challenge (2016), Finalist in the Amazon Robotics Challenge (2017), 2nd Place in the regional OpenCV AI Competition (2021), and multiple 1st Places in the WRS Future Convenience Store Challenge (2018-2025). His research interests include human-safe, efficient robot control, human-robot interaction, manipulation, and task planning.

Yu Ishikawa formerly served as a Research Advisor to Coarobo GK. She received her MSc and PhD degrees from the Nara Women's University (NWU), Japan, in 2014 and 2017, respectively, where she was a Postdoctoral Researcher for the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) until 2018. She served as an Assistant Professor at the Center for Data Science Education and Research of Shiga University from 2018 to 2023, and is currently a Lecturer at the Faculty of Data Science of Kyoto Women's University, Japan, where she collaborates with the industry to introduce engineers to the most recent techniques in the field of data science. Her principal research interests are data mining analysis and brain-machine interface technology.

Luis Yoichi Morales formerly served as a Research Advisor to Coarobo GK. He received his MEng and PhD degrees in robotics in 2006 and 2009, respectively, from the Intelligent Robot Laboratory of the University of Tsukuba, Japan, where he was a Postdoctoral Researcher until 2009. He is currently a Senior Researcher at Standard AI, United States, as well as a Cooperative Research Scientist for the Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute (ATR), Japan, and a Designated Associate Professor at Nagoya University, Japan, since 2009 and 2016, respectively. His research interests include autonomous navigation, spatial cognition, human-computer interaction, and environment modeling. He is also a member of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS) and the Robotics Society of Japan (RSJ).

Pedro Uriguen formerly served as a Research Advisor to Coarobo GK. He received his MEng and PhD degrees in 2018 and 2021, respectively, from the Robotics Laboratory of the Nara Institute of Science and Technology (NAIST), Japan. His doctoral thesis focused on task planning and robotic manipulation in daily-life environments. He served as a Senior Researcher at Ritsumeikan University from 2021 to 2024, and as a Program-Specific Researcher at Kyoto University from 2024 to 2025. He is currently a Specially Appointed Assistant Professor at The University of Osaka, Japan. His research interests include robot control, service robotics, task planning, robotic manipulation, and robotics competitions.

Yuri Shukoor Hayama formerly served as the Operating Officer of Coarobo GK. She is a former employee of a securities firm and an international manufacturer, where she was in charge of brand public relations. She has five years of experience in bilingual Japanese-English environments, with strengths in marketing, communication, and cross-cultural exchange. Her work at Samsonite Japan included launching the company's first TV commercial, which led to a 220% year-on-year sales increase within two months. She also secured extensive media coverage, including The Nikkei and over 40 domestic magazines, contributing to significant public attention within Japan. She has been recognized for her strategic advertising, sponsorships, media and celebrity relations, and maintains strong ties with the Japanese fashion and media industries.

Clément Perissé formerly served as a Research & Development Intern at Coarobo GK. He is currently an Engineering Student at Supmicrotech (École nationale supérieure de mécanique et des microtechniques) in France, specializing in robotics and mechatronic systems. He completed his first internship at the University of Toulon, France, where he worked on an unsupervised machine learning algorithm (K-means++) for AI applications. In 2025, he worked as a research intern at Tokyo Denki University, contributing to the development of a robotic drawing arm integrated with AI. During his studies, he has developed several robotics projects, including a robotic head, a self-balancing robot, and a Cubli 1D robot. He has also participated in the French National Robotics Cup.

Christopher Nolan Arellano formerly served as a Research & Development Intern at Coarobo GK. He is currently an Electrical and Computer Engineering Student at The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin), specializing in communications, signal processing, networks, and systems. He completed his first internship at DNA-Systems LLC, Texas, where he worked with a team to deliver a three-month-delayed building systems project (installation, programming, and documentation) for a California courthouse in two weeks. In 2025, he returned to DNA-Systems LLC as a Field Systems Technician within a Johnson Controls sub-team, installing and wiring autonomous building systems for the North Austin Apple Campus Expansion. During his studies, he has fostered collaboration among prospective robotics students. Through the UT Austin chapter of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS), he tutored first-year students in introductory robotics and led the development of an autonomous robot for the Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition (IGVC). His interests span telecommunication networks, robotics, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and signal processing.

Pulun (Daniel) Zhou formerly served as a Research & Development Intern at Coarobo GK. He is currently an Electrical and Computer Engineering Student in the Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin). He has worked on PCB design and prototyping for novel hardware systems in the RoboMaster robotics competition. His interests span integrated circuits, power electronics, and robotics.

Hajime Teruoka formerly served as a Research & Development Intern at Coarobo GK. He received his MEng degree from the Nara Institute of Science and Technology (NAIST), Japan, and works on research and development in robotics and artificial intelligence. His research interests include robot learning, reinforcement learning, computer vision, and autonomous robotic systems.