Expertise
UAV, autonomy & robotics
Platforms, firmware, ground control and C2 on ROS2, communications and antenna tracking, perception, and embedded hardware.
What problems look like here
- Each use, from survey to agriculture to delivery, needs an aircraft set up for it.
- Links have to hold at range.
- Navigation has to keep working when GPS cannot be relied on.
- Several aircraft in one mission, each streaming telemetry to the ground.
What I built
Case studies
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Custom UAV platforms
Multiple platforms across multirotor, VTOL and fixed-wing for survey and mapping, agriculture and point-to-point delivery, each integrated and customised from firmware to ground control.
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UAV mission command and control on ROS2 and DDS
A custom command-and-control and ground-control system for multi-UAV missions, built on ROS2 with Fast-DDS, with encrypted links, imagery intelligence and an Electron ground-control station.
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Long-range antenna tracking and multi-link communications
A directional ground antenna that stays locked on the aircraft from its live telemetry, with links over direct RF, 4G and WiFi and a satellite link designed for beyond-line-of-sight.
More work
- Window-cleaning drone Custom firmware that read the drone's sensors and generated its flight path at runtime. Stack: Firmware
- Perception and autonomy VIO for GPS-denied localisation, RGB-D and lidar SLAM, depth-camera obstacle avoidance and ArUco precision landing. Stack: SLAM / VIO
- Multi-tenant industrial IoT platform Broker-level MQTT, X.509 and JWT device authentication, OTA firmware and time-series telemetry. Stack: MQTT, X.509, JWT, OTA firmware
- Electronics & devices Built with my team: a smart lock, a GPS tracker and immobiliser, a rover and energy meters, and a self-built 3D printer. Stack: ESP32, Arduino, STM32, Raspberry Pi, PCB design, Firmware
Terrain MULTI-UAV MISSION
- AIRCRAFT ON PLANNED ROUTES
- CAMERA FOOTPRINT
- GPS DENIED
- POSITION UNCERTAINTY
- GROUND STATION
- ENCRYPTED LINK
- LINK MASKED BY TERRAIN
Illustrative concept, not a product screenshot. Terrain: public Terrarium elevation tiles over the Karakoram, chosen for relief.
Patterns I use
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Buy proven airframes and put the engineering into firmware, payloads, comms and ground control.
Used in Custom UAV platforms.
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Custom firmware that reads its sensors and generates the flight path at runtime.
Used in Custom UAV platforms and Window-cleaning drone.
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Point the ground antenna from the aircraft's own telemetry, relayed through ground control.
Used in Long-range antenna tracking and multi-link communications.
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ROS2 over Fast-DDS as the backbone of the ground system.
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Visual-inertial odometry and SLAM for localisation without GPS.
Used in Perception and autonomy.
Stack for this domain
Each links to its entry on the stack page.
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What has he built in UAV and autonomy?
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