Robotics Engineer @ VisionNav Robotics

Hi, I'm Yuxuan Ma.
I build machines that move.

Robotics Engineer / Autonomous Mobile Robots / Industrial Automation

I work on the autonomy stack behind industrial AGVs and AMRs — 3D LiDAR SLAM, multi-sensor calibration, and YOLO-based perception — plus the PLC and functional-safety integration that lets robots and people share a factory floor.

ROS 2
Core robotics stack
AGV · AMR
Industrial autonomy
UIUC
M.S. CS · B.S. EE
01 / About

Engineer at the seam of hardware & software

I'm a robotics engineer working on industrial autonomous vehicles — the AGVs and AMRs that move material through factories and warehouses. At VisionNav Robotics I work across the full autonomy stack: 3D LiDAR SLAM, multi-sensor calibration, perception, and the PLC and functional-safety integration that lets robots and people share the same floor.

My foundation is deliberately broad — an M.S. in Computer Science and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering, both from UIUC. That mix is the point: I'm as comfortable training and deploying a YOLO detection model (ONNX → TensorRT) as I am wiring Modbus TCP between an Allen-Bradley PLC and an AGV, or running FMEA on a heavy-load handling case.

Before robotics I shipped production software — full-stack web apps, React / React Native front-ends, and real-time data pipelines — which is why I think about robots as systems: perception, control, automation, and the upper-level scheduling and MES integration that ties them together. I'm drawn to problems where the success metric is physical: a robot that docks to the millimeter, a line that runs a full shift without intervention.

02 / Skills

Technical toolkit

A working snapshot — grouped by where it sits in a robotics stack. Edit freely.

Robotics & Autonomy

ROS 2 3D LiDAR SLAM Mapping & localization Multi-sensor calibration Multi-LiDAR alignment Precision docking AGV / AMR integration Control theory (PID/LQR/MPC) State estimation (EKF)

Programming & Tools

Python C++ MATLAB / Simulink Linux Docker Git MongoDB REST / WebSocket

Perception & ML

YOLO / object detection OpenCV PyTorch Data annotation & training ONNX → TensorRT Computer vision Sensor fusion

Industrial Automation & Safety

Allen-Bradley PLC (Micro820) Modbus TCP / Ethernet I/O & signal handshaking SICK safety scanners Functional safety FMEA MES / RCS integration

Embedded & Digital Design

Verilog / SystemVerilog FPGA (Vivado) RTL / digital logic PCB design MCU / DSP firmware C / C++

Full-Stack Software

React / React Native Angular Redux Bootstrap Node / REST APIs

Data & Cloud

ETL pipelines pandas / NumPy Web scraping (Scrapy) AWS Solutions Architect AWS ML Specialty
03 / Projects

Selected work

A video or GIF of the system running goes a long way — drop yours into each card's media slot.

CURRENT ROLE VisionNav industrial AGV

Industrial AGV Autonomy @ VisionNav

Robotics Engineer · ROS 2 · AGV / AMR

My professional work bringing autonomous forklifts onto the factory floor — 3D LiDAR SLAM deployment, multi-LiDAR calibration, a YOLO vision pipeline, PLC integration, and functional-safety validation. A growing collection of what I've shipped here.

ROS 23D LiDAR SLAMYOLO / TensorRTAllen-Bradley PLCFunctional safety
Reaction wheel pendulum hardware

Reaction Wheel Pendulum

Controls · ECE 486 · Team of 3

Four controllers designed in MATLAB/Simulink to balance an inverted reaction-wheel pendulum — from two- and three-state full-state feedback to a decoupled observer and an energy-based swing-up. The three-state design tolerated ~10% larger pulses and 50% larger disturbances than the rest.

MATLAB / SimulinkState-space controlPole placementObserver designFriction ID
Robot arm performing precision tasks

Multi-Step Robotic Arm Control

Robotics · Force control · ECE 489 / ME 446

A five-task manipulation routine on a robot arm — straight-line moves, 2-inch peg insertion, obstacle-avoiding zig-zags, and force-controlled egg pressing (500–1000 g) — built from task-space PD, inverse-dynamics, and impedance control with friction compensation, running at 1 kHz on a TMS320 DSP.

MATLABTMS320F28335 DSPTask-space PDImpedance controlJacobian force
ROS system architecture for bridge construction

Vision-Based Robotic Bridge Construction

Robotics · ROS · ECE 470 · Team of 2

A 6-DOF arm that locates 3-block colored sticks from marker geometry (arcsin yaw), solves inverse kinematics with Joint-6 wraparound handling, and stacks two leaning towers into a stable 232 mm "Tower of Lire" bridge using overhang math and collision-aware waypoints.

ROSC++ / PythonOpenCVInverse kinematicsHomography calib.
Habit-Forming KeyStation prototype

Habit-Forming KeyStation

Embedded · ECE 445 · Team of 3

A senior-design key dock that fuses ultra-wideband time-of-flight ranging (DWM1000) with an FSR pressure sensor and an ATtiny84A four-state machine. Includes a custom PCB, an LM1117 power chain, and an antenna-delay calibration analysis cutting ranging error from 30 cm to ~4.5 cm.

ATtiny84ADWM1000 UWBFSR 406Custom PCBSPI
Flappy Bird running on the FPGA board

Flappy Bird on FPGA

Digital design · ECE 385 · Team of 2

Hardware Flappy Bird on the Urbana FPGA board in SystemVerilog — a MicroBlaze + AXI system with a custom VGA controller (640×480), sprite ROMs, a START/GAME/INVINCIBLE/END FSM, and pixel-accurate multi-pillar collision. 8,089 LUTs, 55.5 MHz, 0.51 W.

SystemVerilogFPGAMicroBlaze + AXIVGA / HDMIVivado
Code reasoning & test generation

Code Reasoning & Test Generation

LLM · Prompt engineering

Improved code reasoning and automated test generation on code LLMs (DeepSeek-Coder) through tailored prompt-engineering strategies.

LLMPrompt engineeringPython
CryptoToolkit — cryptographic primitives

CryptoToolkit

Security · Cryptography

Implementation of core cryptographic primitives — symmetric and asymmetric encryption, digital signatures, and blockchain fundamentals.

C++CryptographyBlockchain
SteamGenie — game recommendations

SteamGenie

Full-stack web

A React / Express web app that delivers personalized Steam game recommendations.

ReactExpressJavaScript
04 / Experience

Where I've worked & studied

Work
Dec 2025 — Present

Robotics Engineer

VisionNav Robotics · Lawrenceville, GA
  • Integrated AGV robotics systems in Python / Linux / ROS 2, deploying 3D LiDAR SLAM with on-site mapping, localization tuning, and multi-sensor calibration across the perception and safety stacks.
  • Performed multi-LiDAR calibration (safety + perception LiDAR alignment), external parameter tuning (yaw/pitch), fork-height calibration, and precision docking adjustment.
  • Configured SICK safety laser scanners in Safety Designer, defining protective fields and supporting functional-safety validation in mixed human–robot environments.
  • Built PLC–AGV communication on an Allen-Bradley Micro820 over Modbus TCP / Ethernet — I/O mapping, signal handshaking, and traffic-light control logic.
  • Contributed to the YOLO-based "Bright-Eye" vision pipeline (data collection, annotation, training, ONNX → TensorRT deployment) for pallet and reel detection.
  • Supported integration across the RCS scheduler, vision server, PLC wrapper machine, traffic lights, and customer MES for automated dispatch; ran FMEA-style analysis on heavy-load handling and human–AGV coexistence.
ROS 23D LiDAR SLAMYOLOAllen-Bradley PLCSICK SafetyTensorRT
May 2025 — Sep 2025

Product Development Engineer

3DEX · Irvine, CA
  • Cut page-load latency ~40% via React Native optimizations (AsyncStorage caching, context state, FlatList tuning, parallel API loading).
  • Refactored 15+ critical components with React hooks + Redux — 50% less code duplication and 25% faster builds.
  • Built RESTful + WebSocket integrations handling 200+ concurrent connections for real-time inventory and analytics dashboards.
React / React NativeAngularReduxWebSocket
May 2023 — Aug 2023

Engineer Intern

Systemteq · Anshan, China
  • Developed "smart hotel" and "smart house" features and engineered debug tools to speed up troubleshooting.
  • Assembled and prototyped a speech-recognition robot and a reliable power-supply model.
EmbeddedPrototypingIoT
Jun 2022 — Aug 2022

Software Engineer Intern

Horus Intelligence Solutions · Urbana-Champaign
  • Built a scalable ETL pipeline processing 15K records/day, cutting insight-delivery time from ~40h to ~7h.
  • Wrote a Python scraping framework (BeautifulSoup, Scrapy) and a pandas/NumPy validation pipeline auto-correcting 95% of inconsistencies; >85% test coverage.
PythonETLpandasScrapy
Jun 2021 — Aug 2021

Algorithm Engineer Intern

Sohu.com · Beijing, China
Education
Jul 2024 — Dec 2025

M.S., Computer Science

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
GPA 4.00 / 4.00
Jul 2021 — May 2024

B.S., Electrical Engineering · Minor in CS

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
GPA 3.65 / 4.00
Aug 2019 — May 2021

Dual Enrollment, General Studies

Fort Hays State University
Certifications

Cloud, ML & Security

AWS Solutions Architect – Professional AWS ML – Specialty HTB Web Exploitation (CWES) Foundations of Cybersecurity
Relevant coursework — UIUC, mapped to the skills each course built

Robotics & Control

ECE 470Introduction to Robotics
Forward/inverse kinematics · DH convention · motion planning (config space, RRT, potential fields) · trajectory generation · ROS
ECE 489 / ME 446Robot Dynamics & Control
Manipulator dynamics · task-space, force & impedance control · Jacobians · underactuated systems
ECE 486Control Systems
State-space & feedback control · PID · stability analysis · observers · real-time control

Hardware, Embedded & Digital

ECE 385Digital Systems Laboratory
SystemVerilog · FPGA synthesis · SoC / MicroBlaze · hardware–software co-design
ECE 445Senior Design Project
PCB design · embedded systems · full-system integration & verification
ECE 330Power Circuits & Electromechanics
Electric machines · motors & drives · electromechanical energy conversion
ECE 310Digital Signal Processing
Digital filters · sampling · FFT · spectral analysis

AI, ML & Estimation

ECE 448Artificial Intelligence
Search & planning · probabilistic reasoning · neural nets · reinforcement learning · CV
CS 307Modeling & Learning in Data Science
Machine-learning modeling · feature engineering · data pipelines
ECE 313Probability with Engineering Apps
Probability & random processes — the basis for estimation & ML

Computing & Math Foundations

CS 225Data Structures
Data structures & algorithms in C++
CS 241System Programming
Systems programming · concurrency · OS concepts · C
CS 357Numerical Methods
Numerical linear algebra & scientific computing
MATH 257Linear Algebra
Linear algebra — core math for robotics & ML
CS 438Communication Networks
Networking & protocols — relevant to industrial comms
05 / Contact

Let's build something that moves

I'm currently open to robotics and automation roles. If you have an interesting problem — or just want to talk shop — my inbox is open.