Robotics engineering student writing firmware, drivers and bus protocols on PIC18, STM32 and PSoC — and taking the boards under them from schematic to bring-up.
Pick a trace to followsix nets · one board
U1 · About
Who built this board
Robotics engineering undergraduate at ASU, writing low-level firmware, drivers and communication protocols on PIC18, STM32 and PSoC — and taking boards from schematic capture through PCB layout to bring-up and design verification.
I started on real factory floors in Chennai commissioning robot cells, then moved into embedded systems at ASU, where I now mentor other students through the same courses. I’m looking for a hardware engineering internship in embedded systems or firmware.
Degree
B.S.E. Engineering (Robotics), Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, ASU
Expected
May 2027
Coursework
Embedded Systems Design (EGR 304, EGR 314), Circuits & Electronics, Digital Signal Processing, Robotic Systems (EGR 456)
Hardware engineering internship — embedded systems / firmware
U2 · Experience
Robot cells, students, campus tech
7robotic cells and workstations commissioned
120+undergraduates mentored across three embedded courses
1,400+technical incidents resolved
17+technology-enabled classrooms commissioned
Aug 2025 – present · Phoenix, AZ
Technology Consultant · ASU Enterprise Technology
Maintain enterprise technology infrastructure across 300+ instructional spaces and 9 research laboratories (3 AI, 2 robotics, 4 biotech).
Support enterprise networking and embedded sensor infrastructure for robotics perception research, GPU workstations and ML/cloud research environments.
Resolved 1,400+ technical incidents through hardware validation, diagnostics and board-level troubleshooting.
Specified, deployed and commissioned 17+ technology-enabled classrooms from specification through bring-up.
Aug 2024 – present · Mesa, AZ
Section Leader · ASU Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering
EGR 304 · EGR 314 · EGR 456
Mentor 120+ undergraduate engineering students across three embedded systems courses on UART, SPI and I²C debug, peripheral integration, firmware bring-up and hardware validation.
Review student schematic capture and PCB layout in Cadence and KiCad; resolve routing issues and board-level bugs at design reviews.
Coach students on surface-mount soldering, wiring and sensor integration; prepare labs and run Fulton freshman embedded systems outreach.
May 2023 – Jul 2024 · Chennai, India
Engineering Intern · Master Linque Automation
Integrated and commissioned 7 robotic cells and workstations built from PLCs, servo drives, steppers and pneumatic actuators; wrote or modified 10 robot motion programs on ABB and FANUC platforms.
Programmed the largest cell on site, a 6-axis ABB automated windshield installation station, applying robot kinematics and integrating encoder, IMU and force/torque feedback with PLC/HMI control.
Instrumented cells to stream 4 live production KPIs from the PLC/HMI to a centralized monitoring server for real-time visibility.
Diagnosed line-stopping faults across wiring, motion control, sensor integration and PLC/HMI, and validated each system before it returned to production.
Production line under NDA; KPI values aren’t shared.
U3 · Projects
Things I’ve wired up
R6 Recon Amphibot
Jan – May 2026
EGR 314 · Sensor & HMI subsystem lead
Owned the PIC18F57Q83 sensor and HMI subsystem end to end: schematic capture, PCB layout, BOM, surface-mount assembly, firmware, bring-up and design verification.
Diagnosed an MSSP peripheral conflict blocking I²C and resolved it with a bit-banged I²C driver in C, keeping the BNO055 IMU, SH1106 OLED and HDC2080 sensor working with no board respin.
Built and debugged a three-node UART daisy chain at 9600 baud, 8N1, with custom 12-byte ASCII command and telemetry frames, validated on oscilloscope and logic analyzer.
Fed subsystem telemetry into the team’s MQTT path to cloud infrastructure with a SQL backend.
Passed subsystem hardware verification and external design review; wrote the driver API docs and final datasheet report.
PIC18F57Q83
BNO055
SH1106
HDC2080
UART
MQTT
Vision-Guided 3-Axis Pick-and-Place
Jan – May 2026
EGR 456 · PSoC 5LP
Developed a three-axis robotic manipulator for autonomous pick-and-place with real-time motor control in embedded C.
Vision-assisted object localization in OpenCV with closed-loop PID correction for positioning error while grasping.
Integrated motor drivers, sensors and embedded control hardware; board-level bring-up, I/O validation and end-to-end system verification.
92.5% success (74/80) in a 350 × 200 × 150 mm workspace at ±2.5 mm accuracy, ±1.0 mm repeatability, 4.8 s per cycle.
PSoC 5LP
Embedded C
OpenCV
PID
IR Motion-Sensing Door Actuator
Aug – Dec 2025
EGR 304 · PIC18F57Q43
Took an infrared motion-sensing door actuator from concept to working prototype, owning the design end to end.
Designed the infrared sensing front end and signal-conditioning circuit that shapes raw sensor output into a clean, reliable threshold.
Produced the schematic, fabricated the PCB, executed hardware bring-up and wrote the control firmware in embedded C.
Validated the sensing-to-actuation path and defended the design in an external design review, scoring 100% on functionality and documentation.
PIC18F57Q43
IR sensing
Signal conditioning
PCB bring-up
Self-Configuring Deterministic Control Fabric
Aug 2024 – now
Independent research on a masterless, fault-tolerant bus protocol for deterministic industrial control networks. Full write-up under Research.
RS-485
TDMA
PIC18F57Q83
Python
MPLAB X
Array Technologies Capstone
In progress
“A Row Detection Add-on for Solar PV Trackers.” Industry-sponsored senior capstone (EGR 401/402, Team 20). I co-manage the project.
Sponsor: Array Technologies
Solar PV trackers
Co-PM
Dual-Domain Galvanic Handoff Earbuds
Paper
A simulation-only IEEE-style paper on a true-wireless earbud platform with a dual-domain galvanic handoff, with the hardware designed in KiCad.
KiCad
TWS
Simulation
Orange Juice Vending Machine
Designing
An automation showcase at ASU, designed to comply with IEC 60335 household-appliance safety.
IEC 60335
Automation
Zephy
9th upgrade
My personal voice assistant, started as a local assistant on an Ollama/Qwen backend. The ninth upgrade is a Jarvis-style assistant on my own machine that can place calls, schedule meetings and work on projects with me and others.
Voice assistant
Calls
Scheduling
Ollama
Qwen
U4 · Research
SDCF: a bus with no master
Self-Configuring Deterministic Control Fabric — independent research since August 2024 on a masterless, fault-tolerant bus protocol for deterministic industrial control networks.
PIC18F57Q83 nodes on a shared RS-485 bus allocate collision-free TDMA slots among themselves and absorb peer failures with no coordinator node.
63nodes converge within 88 frames, worst case
3frames for peer takeover, against an analytical bound of 4
7,200words in the technical manuscript, in preparation
Characterized in a Python simulator, then ported to JavaScript with a browser visualizer for schedule inspection. A reference firmware implementation is underway in MPLAB X, and I measured fault-recovery bounds against the analytical model.
RS-485
TDMA
Deterministic scheduling
PIC18F57Q83
Python
JavaScript
MPLAB X
U5 · Skills
Component bin
Languages
C
Embedded C
C++
Python
PIC18 Assembly
MATLAB
SQL
Bash
Embedded
Bare-metal register-level programming on PIC18F57Q83/Q43, STM32 and Arduino; interrupt-driven design; peripheral drivers and HALs; embedded debugging.
Hardware and board bring-up
Firmware validation and verification
Protocols
UART
SPI
I²C
RS-485
CAN
USB (basic)
Ethernet
TCP/IP
MQTT
Hardware
Schematic capture, PCB design, layout, fabrication and bring-up; digital and analog circuit analysis; signal integrity and conditioning; digital logic; SMT soldering and rework.
Board-level debugging
Hardware validation and verification
Test equipment
Oscilloscope
Logic analyzer
Function generator
Digital multimeter
Bench power supply
Tools
MPLAB X
PSoC Creator
Cadence Allegro X
Cadence PCB Designer
KiCad
SolidWorks
Siemens NX
Git/GitHub
Linux
macOS
Robots & industrial control
ABB
FANUC
ROS 2
OpenCV
Allen-Bradley
Siemens PLC
Ladder / ST / FBD
ANSI/RIA 15.06
Certifications
Cadence: Allegro X Advanced Package Designer v24.1
MathWorks: Computer Vision Engineer
University of Toronto: Self-Driving Cars Specialization
Packt: Mastering ROS 2
Autodesk: Electronics Design
Autodesk: Assembly Modeling
Autodesk Certified Professional: AutoCAD
U6 · Blog
Global robotics desk
What I’m reading about robotics in different countries, and how I’d think about it as an embedded engineer. News items cite their sources; the opinions are mine.
J1 · Contact
The connector is open
I’m looking for a hardware engineering internship in embedded systems or firmware, and I graduate in May 2027. Send a signal.