Robotics Software Engineer
Abhi Srinivasan
Building and deploying robotic manipulation and control systems on physical hardware. End-to-end from simulation to on-robot testing, debugging, and production deployment.
Work Experience
Senior Robotics Software Engineer
Kawasaki Robotics
San Jose, CA
June 2022 – Present
- Developed Automatic Wafer Centering to detect payload offset and update robot motion path on-the-fly to 100 micron placement accuracy.
- Developed Robot Dynamic Alignment to detect and rotate end-effector to accurately lift a substrate.
- Built software for Kawasaki's proprietary Particle Abatement System — saves up to 70% of typical cleaning cycle time.
- Technical Software lead for two $5M+ order value projects with leading semiconductor companies.
- Released 75+ firmware versions to support different layouts and hardware to support wafer transfers in the fab.
- Built a ground-up robot diagnostics tool for predictive robot health monitoring.
AS LanguageKinematicsTrajectory Planning
FirmwareSemiconductor Fab
Robotics Software Engineer
Gorbel Inc.
Rochester, NY
Jan 2020 – June 2022
- Designed and implemented a force/torque-based control system enabling a robotic crane to intuitively lift and position loads by sensing applied human force.
- Extended the core control architecture to a rehabilitation device (Gorbel SafeGait), adapting for precision, safety, and human-centric motion.
Force ControlHuman-Robot InteractionRehabilitation Robotics
Internships
Mechatronics Intern
ASML
Wilton, CT
June 2019 – Sept 2019
- Developed a temperature regulation system for overheating supply pipes.
- Developed a linear regression model for temperature-based correction on the end-stage linear reticle for EUV Lithography.
EUV LithographyMechatronicsRegression Modeling
Graduate Research Assistant
Robotics and Rehabilitation Lab, Columbia University
New York, NY
Jan 2019 – June 2019
- Analyzed performance of different RL policies (MLP, CNN, MLP-LSTM) on OpenAI Gym for dynamic obstacle avoidance.
Reinforcement LearningOpenAI GymPython
Research Intern
Surgical Technologies Research Group, University of Leeds
Greater Leeds Area, UK
May 2017 – Jul 2017
- Developed a magnetometer-based hyper-elastic sensor for surgical applications under Prof. Peter Culmer.
- Contributed to experimental validation and data analysis leading to publication.
Soft Robotics
Sensor Development
Magnetometer
Biomedical Engineering
Research Intern
Mechatronics with Robotics Applications Lab, IIT Ropar
Ropar, Punjab, India
Nov 2016 – Dec 2016
- Designed and implemented control algorithms for a custom modular manipulator using LabVIEW RT.
- Developed real-time motion control framework for robotic joint coordination and testing.
Control Systems
LabVIEW RT
Modular Robotics
Mechatronics
Education
MS in Robotics
Columbia University
New York, NY
Dec 2019 · GPA 3.71
- Teaching Assistant for Mechatronics and Embedded Systems — conducted lab sessions for 45 students.
- Coursework: Robot Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Humanoid Robots, Advanced Robotics.
BE in Mechanical Engineering
PSG College of Technology
Coimbatore, India
June 2018
- Led roll cage design of Formula Student Car (Pegasus'17) — finished 11/75 at Formula Student Germany.
- Best final year dissertation (1st/120) on building a flexible magnetometer-based soft sensor.
- 1st/1200 in university-wide Math Olympiad (placed 2nd, 8th, 10th in three other editions).
Skills
Languages
Python · C · C++ · AS (Kawasaki)
Frameworks
ROS · ROS2 · Gazebo · OpenAI Gym
Domains
Motion Planning · Manipulation · Real-time Control · Kinematics · Force Control