Derek Braun Email & Phone Number

Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Calgary, Alberta, Canada

• Overhauled autonomous landscaping robot's localization and navigation system on ROS Noetic and Ubuntu Linux. Solved persistent issues in the EKF fusion of RTK GPS, IMU, and wheel odometry to keep positional accuracy to.
• Designed and implemented a custom perception algorithm for the onboard mm-wave radar to detect and respond to pedestrians and vehicles.
• Engineered a novel approach to obstacle avoidance with over 90% consistency under the cost constraints of a limited vision sensor suite, consisting of a narrow FOV depth camera and ultrasonic sensors.
• Reduced operational set-up time from over 1 hour to less than 20 minutes by integrating a user app and a custom staggered startup system.
• Created a simulated testing environment using Gazebo and ROS to dramatically increase feature testing speed and iteration time.
• Elicited and roadmapped actionable feature requirements from prospective B2C and B2B end-users.

• Implemented client-facing API functionality in C++ for customizing the implementation of UAV ground control software.
• Championed the investigation and task breakdown of critical features and bug-fixes.
• Designed and employed a re-usable Python script to crawl through the entire existing codebase and modify formatting and path specifications to address an upgrade-related build issue.
• Performed test driven development by writing C++ unit and acceptance tests for all functional code and validated results with the automated CI system.
• Designed and implemented re-usable UI elements and features using the Qt framework.
• Improved the extendibility of the UAV communication protocol parser to generically handle custom byte fields.

Calgary, Canada Area

Worked in a team of two to develop a Network Access Control management web app using ASP.NET MVC coded in C# now in use by IT at the U of C. Performed meta-data updates and wrote documentation for the applications managed by the university.

Calgary, Canada Area

Taught kids age 11-14 how to code with JavaScript and the Phaser framework to make browser games and android apps. I made challenging concepts understandable for the kids and developed creative solutions to make the coding for their ambitious projects manageable and attainable.