Built and led a robotics team responsible for the autonomous taxiing and cargo manipulation capabilities of a novel autonomous aerial+ground cargo drone, encompassing software, sensors, actuators, mechanisms, compute components, electrical systems, and ground support systems.

• Recruited, onboarded, and managed a team of 6 software, mechanical, and robotics engineers

• Implemented and led team rituals and established strong ways of working, e.g. OKRs, design reviews, quarterly reviews, hackathons, and collaborative goal setting sessions

• Led the design, build, and field testing of several autonomous full scale ground demonstrator vehicles, resulting in successful demonstrations for industry groups, key investors, and senior DOD leadership

• Designed and implemented avionics and comms system for ⅓-scale Part 107 compliant aircraft, encompassing sensors, flight computers, RF systems, networking, comms buses, and flight logging

Led the development of a ROS2-based robotics software stack enabling autonomous ground taxi and cargo pick-up operations for a large cargo-carrying drone.

• Authored C++ and Python robotics software modules for sensing, path planning, state estimation, control, cargo pod docking and manipulation, sensor and actuator interfaces, and high level vehicle behaviors

• Developed high-fidelity Gazebo simulation environment including virtualized communications busses, device emulators, and simulated cargo manipulation

• Led several test campaigns with full scale prototype vehicle, successfully demonstrating outdoor navigation, cargo pod tracking (Lidar/UWB) and manipulation, collision avoidance, and high level vehicle behaviors

• Established tools and processes for best software development practices, including diverse compilers, static analysis, build automation, CI, and peer review

• Developed safety critical avionics software in C++ culminating in a successful full-scale flight test campaign

• Sole author of mission critical CAN and serial bus drivers for propulsion motor controllers, scanning Lidars, radar altimeter, high-voltage batteries, flight termination system, and air data modules

• Developed SIL/HIL simulation environments, including creating realistic emulators for the above devices

• Established C++/CMake cross-compile build system, unit test framework, and deployment infrastructure for vehicle’s network of 10 ARM Linux flight computers networked via CAN bus and Ethernet

• Served as flight test engineer during first full-scale flight test campaign, including development of processes and checklists as well as hands-on vehicle integration support

Developed core robotics software and firmware for Cozmo and Vector product lines, which shipped to hundreds of thousands of users worldwide.

• Wrote and maintained software modules encompassing sensing, control, localization, mapping, simulation, robot behavior, docking, manipulation, IMU bias correction, freefall detection, and table edge detection

• Authored several user-facing high-level robot behaviors such as detecting/dancing to music, autonomously returning to the charging dock, interactive user games, and reactions to user behavior

• Maintained robot simulation framework including automated simulation CI/regression tests

• Initiated several R&D projects that grew into full fledged features and shipped in major releases