Thomas Pech

Senior Robotics Software Engineer

Hawthorne, California, United States

About

I am an engineer passionate about applying mobile robots to do real work on earth and beyond.

Experience

  • Senior Robotics Software Engineer at Astrolab
    Sep 2024 - Present · 1 yr 10 mos

    Developing autonomy capabilities for Astrolab’s lunars rovers, including the uncrewed FLIP rover launching second half of 2026, and the crewed CLV-1 vehicle that will be driven by the first astronauts to return to the lunar surface on Artemis IV. Responsibilities encompass localization, perception, motion planning/control, simulation, ground software, and rover teleoperation during missions.

  • Built Robotics (5 yrs 4 mos)
    • Technical Lead and Engineering Manager
      Jul 2022 - Jun 2024 · 2 yrs

      - Led the computer vision team through the development, testing, deployment, and monitoring of key features enabling a fleet of fully autonomous excavators to perform tasks such as excavation, trenching, and pile driving. - Completed projects including a safety-critical pedestrian detection system, sensor selection/integration/calibration, camera-LIDAR sensor fusion, 3D object pose estimation, ArUco pose estimation, automatic targeted data collection, large dataset management and cleaning, custom deep learning model training, reliable video streaming in low bandwidth and unreliable network environments, accurate and precise real-time terrain mapping robust to dust/fog/rain/snow, and real-time terrain traversability analysis.

    • Robotics Software Engineer
      Mar 2019 - Jul 2022 · 3 yrs 5 mos

  • Technical Advisor at Planetoid Mines Company
    Mar 2022 - Sep 2023 · 1 yr 7 mos

    - Volunteered part time providing technical advice on sensor selection and software design for a lunar ice mining robot for a NASA Break the Ice Challenge Phase II proposal, and oversaw the subsequent development of the prototype.

  • Machine Learning Software Engineer (Contract) at GM - Cruise (via Bluestone Holdings)
    May 2018 - Nov 2018 · 7 mos

    - Prototyped features including car crash detection, human body pose estimation, facial expression classification.

  • Robotics Software Engineer at bObsweep Inc.
    Jun 2017 - Apr 2018 · 11 mos

    - Implemented mapping, localization, path planning, and navigation algorithms for autonomous robot vacuum cleaners equipped with 2D LIDAR, IMUs, and time-of-flight proximity sensors. - Worked in a Linux environment using C++, ROS/RViz, Boost, Google Test, and Cmake.