Project Engineer / Project Manager in Robotics Software Engineering

KAI ZHANG

850-***-**** *** Pennell Circle, Apt 4, Tallahassee, FL 32310 ************@*****.***

OBJECTIVE

To obtain a full time, senior level position involved in mechanical engineering/control engineering/software development to fully utilize my skills and further develop myself.

EDUCATION

Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering, 2010, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida GPA: 3.6/4.0

M.S. in Computer Science, 2006, Jacob University Bremen, Bremen, Germany

B.E. in Information Engineering, 1999, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing, China

• Patent, China Patent # 97227260.7, Universal Multi-shaft System for Group Machining, issued September 26, 1997.

EXPERIENCE

Project Leader , Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida February 2006 – present

• Served as team leader for complex coordination strategies of heterogeneous robot teams by employing economic principles.

o Reconstruct 3D scenes for distributed multi-robot resource coordination using Microsoft’s Kinect.

o Proposed, implemented and tested Stochastic Cluster Auctions that can trade off global optimal performance and team efficiency.

o Integrated the QorIQ P4080 processor (8-core) into the physical experiments of multi-robot communication for combined control and dataplane processing, enabling 4 times improvement in computational and communication performance.

o Wrote C++ codes for auction protocol and coordination strategy in GDB, GCC, and Eclipse IDE.

o Accomplished physical experiments for multi-robot communication (TCP/IP) in JAUS SDK.

• Developed a robotic vehicle from concept to final product, including embedded control firmware/hardware/software integration, control system design, motion control, real time data logging and sensors installation.

o Programmed and configured PC104 embedded control software and hardware system, including microprocessor board, DAQ board, DC/DC board, sensors, encoder, Ethernet converter, etc.

o Modeled and simulated vehicle closed-loop control system in Matlab/Simulink, including PID controller, motor drive, motor and vehicle dynamics.

o Wrote firmware in C code in VxWorks for ADC, DAC, counter and timer; and wrote the main program for robot motion control, including programming low pass filter, PID controller and robot kinematics.

o Programmed path planning algorithms in C code to control robot to follow trajectories to reduce time, distance or energy; and fed sensor data in VxWorks to ensure robot follow the desired trajectories.

o Collected experimental data from sensors, performed root cause analysis of experimental data, debugged programs and developed new experiments.

o Processed experimental data through optimization methods to determine unknown parameters; and designed low pass filters to reduce data noise.

• Wrote LabVIEW code on PXI platform to retrieve pressure/position/temperature data, model positioning system in pitch/yaw, and control wind tunnel airspeed.

Researcher , Jacobs University Bremen, Bremen, Germany November 2003 - January 2006

• Evaluated rescue robot behaviors in Urban Search and Rescue Simulation based on the Unreal Tournament game engine, proposed a novel strategy, and improved its efficacy on various complex environments by 15%.

• Planned motions for multiple robot simulation in new directions using OpenGL, Qt and the FOX GUI Toolkits' marriage libraries-the Motion Strategy Library.

• Designed frontend for fast robot prototyping using Cognex vision system.

Engineer , Nanyang Technological University, Singapore January 2002 - March 2003

• Investigated automotive vehicle longitudinal control and developed a new learning switch strategy for throttle and brake control.

• Devised two computed control signals to determine whether to activate the throttle, or the brake, or inaction.

• Demonstrated the resulting control law renders dramatically smooth behaviors for vehicle tracking.

Engineer , Guo Li Geothermic Co., Kaifeng, China October 2000 - January 2002

• Integrated an HVAC Geothermal Heating system with Heat Pumps.

• Developed the interface with the hardware using the MicroLogix controller.

• Consolidated the system which operates in a harsh environment robustly.

Engineer , Tian Yu Building Automation Systems Co., Nanjing, China September 1999 - October 2000

• Built Human System Interface, and integrated information such as module type, status, and setup options in easily comprehensible text.

• Instituted that all process actions were determined in Honeywell DCS, which leads the system to exceed the highest standards of quality by 20%.

TECHNICAL SKILLS

• Design/Simulation/Statistical Tools: AutoCAD, Pro/E, Microsoft Visio, Microsoft Office Suite, Matlab/Simulink, and Minitab.

• Control and Electronics: Robotics and AI, Embedded systems, Communication, Verilog HDL.

• Programming Languages: C/C++, Python, LabView.

• Web Development: (X)HTML / CSS / JavaScript.

• Administration: Linux, Windows, IP Networks, Internet-based services.

• Software Management: SubVersion, CVS.

• Platforms: MS Windows, Solaris, Linux, QNX, VxWorks, and PXI.

• Linux / UNIX: Shell scripts, GNU tools, OS/Kernel, Network programming.

LANGUAGES

• Mandarin: native

• English: fluent

• German: basic

HONORS

• Student Star for leadership in the academic, campus, and wider communities - Florida State University. July/August 2010.

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