Vaibhav Shende Vaibhav Shende

About

Vaibhav Shende

Vaibhav Shende

M.Eng. in Robotics @ University of Maryland

Resume

About Me

I am an M.Eng. Robotics candidate at the University of Maryland with 2+ years of industry experience building autonomous systems, from ship hull inspection crawlers to legged robots. At GAMMA Lab, I research vision-language-action models that have achieved ~46% lower collision rates on real quadruped hardware.

My work sits at the intersection of perception, motion planning, and embedded systems. I have deployed software on Ghost Robotics Vision60, Unitree GO-2, TurtleBot4, and custom inspection platforms, integrating SLAM, Nav2, sensor fusion, and low-level C++ communication stacks (RS485, CAN, I2C) end-to-end.

I am an active ROS 2 open-source contributor (top 20, Kilted Kaiju release) and bring a hardware-first mindset to learning-based robotics. Currently seeking a Summer / Fall 2026 internship in autonomous systems, robot perception, or embedded robotics.


Skills & Expertise

C
C++
Python
MATLAB
CMake
Bash
ROS
Gazebo
Nav2
MoveIt
SLAM
OpenCV
Linux
Arduino
ESP32
STM32
Raspberry Pi
NVIDIA Jetson
ZED
Ouster
RS485
UART
I2C
SPI
CAN
SolidWorks
Fusion 360
FreeCAD
KiCad
Proteus
Qt
Docker
Git
CUDA
NVIDIA Isaac Sim
CARLA

Work Experience

Oct 2025 - Present

Graduate Research Assistant

GAMMA Lab, University of Maryland

Built a human-in-the-loop annotation pipeline using OpenCV to generate 10,000+ counterfactual preference labels on the SCAND dataset for fine-tuning visuomotor navigation policies. Validated on Ghost Robotics Vision60 quadruped; policy achieved ~46% lower collision rate and ~24% higher goal-reach success in unstructured indoor environments. Contributing to 2 papers submitted to CoRL 2026: CHOP and VEGA.

Sep 2024 - Nov 2024

Robotics Software Engineer Intern, SLAM & Quadruped Navigation

9thPixel Geosoft, Hyderabad, India

Designed wireless ROS 2 telemetry pipeline that cut operator command latency by ~60%, enabling stable remote operation at 100 m over UDP/Wi-Fi. Defined system architecture for a solar panel inspection robot (sensor placement, ROS 2 node topology, and hardware safety interlocks), reducing estimated hardware integration time by 30%.

Sep 2022 - Aug 2023

Robotics Software Engineer, Embedded Systems & Autonomous Navigation

Octobotics Tech, Noida, India

Engineered autonomous magnetic-wheel crawler for ship hull inspection, tested at 2 international port sites; completed cycles 2× faster than manual procedures. Architected C++ RS485 libraries for STM32 actuators sustaining 10 Mbps throughput and 99.8% delivery reliability. Hardened communication stack with watchdog timers, cutting field downtime by ~70%. Built Qt5 teleoperation HMI that reduced operator onboarding from 2 weeks to 3 days.

Nov 2020 - May 2021

Robotics Software Intern, Perception & UAV Systems

Pashaan Technologies, Nagpur, India

Developed OpenCV ArUco marker detection pipeline for autonomous VTOL precision landing, achieving <10 cm accuracy at 20 m altitude. Implemented SRT subtitle parsing pipeline cutting post-processing time by 65% across 200+ hours of footage. Engineered configurable Li-ion BMS supporting 3S–6S configurations with real-time balancing and safety cutoffs, deployed on 4 UAV platforms.


Education

Jan 2025 - Dec 2026

Master of Engineering in Robotics Engineering

University of Maryland, College Park

GPA: 3.70/4.00 | Coursework: Motion Planning, Robot Perception, Autonomous Vehicles, Robot Learning, Swarm Robotics

Aug 2018 - May 2023

Bachelor of Technology in Electronics Engineering

Government College of Engineering, Amravati

Minor in Telecommunication | CGPA: 7.65/10.00