Multidisciplinary Engineer, Roboticist, and Spatial Interaction Designer
I make machines that can perceive atoms and manipulate matter, and interfaces that let people perceive information and manipulate bits. I am passionate about renewable energy and environmental preservation. I enjoy working at the intersection of technology, nature, and human experience. I have a proven track record of building robots, founding companies, and leading teams.
If you're in a rush, you can download my resume by clicking the button. Otherwise, enjoy my online curriculum vitae!
About Daniel Fitzgerald
Daniel Fitzgerald is a highly accomplished roboticist, engineer, and designer with a strong academic background and extensive professional experience. He holds a Master's degree from the MIT Media Lab and a Bachelor's degree in Robotics Engineering/Computer Science (double major) from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI).
At Charge Robotics, where he served as the first employee, Daniel played a pivotal role in developing an autonomous telehandler for the first pilot project. He later developed an industrial robot workcell for assembling solar panels, part of the Sunrise™ System. He also led field operations for the delivery and installation of solar panels and tracking systems during the second pilot project.
Prior to that, he worked as a Software Engineer at iRobot on the SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping) team, where he led the development of cloud-based analytics to evaluate localization accuracy, debug robot behaviors, and characterize IMU performance. Utilizing these tools to analyze logs from the fleet of internal testing robots and simulated missions, he discovered several problems with the gyroscope calibrations and corruption of factor-graph based maps.
Daniel's research experience includes serving as a Research Assistant at MIT Media Lab's Tangible Media Group, where he developed novel interactive programmable materials and tangible interfaces that were presented at CHI and TEI. He previously worked as a research assistant in the Lewis Group at the Harvard Wyss Institute where he 3D printed embedded electronic circuits with Voxel8 and also 3D printed Octobot, the first self-contained soft robot, which was published in Nature.
Finally, Daniel has a long history of entrepreneurship, having founded five academic teams/clubs, two companies, and worked at five startups. He has competed in XPrizes, demoed at TechCrunch Sessions, won hackathons, participated in design competitions, and presented TEDx talks.”
Education
Work Experience
Charge Robotics
Robotics Engineer, 1st Employee, in-person Oakland, CA.
- Made an autonomous telehandler, including drive-by-wire retrofits and autonomous software.
- Owned the entire development of a robot workstation to pick and place various metal brackets.
- Led field operations for delivery and installation of solar tracker hardware, including planning and testing SOPs, and improving the process on-site during pilot projects
- Curated a dataset of thousands of images of pallets and other objects on construction sites. Trained a model (YOLOv8) to detect objects for pallet picking and obstacle avoidance
iRobot
Software Engineer, SLAM Team, Bedford, MA (remote).
- Implemented set of internal python analytics tools for comparing robot logs to ground-truth data to assess localization accuracy.
- Used the tools to characterize the performance of robot gyroscopes and find problems with factory IMU calibration and gyroscopic drift.
- Created a cloud infrastructure (AWS Batch Jobs) integrated with Jenkins to run the analytics on PR builds to detect regressions in the SLAM system.
MIT Media Lab
Research Assistant, Tangible Media Group, Cambridge, MA.
- Lead research on interactive programmable materials.
- Teaching Assistant for MAS.834 Tangible Interfaces
- Exhibitor for ‘Radical Atoms’ Main Exhibit at Ars Electronica Festival 2016
- Competitor, TechCrunch Robotics Sessions, 2017
Amazon Robotics
Software Intern, Fulfillment Center Automation, Westborough, MA.
- Developed a custom computer vision pipeline for object recognition and 3D pose estimation in real time in C++ with OpenCV
- Designed datatypes for storing and retrieving 3D registration features from scanned objects.
- Constructed a stereoscopic camera rig for 3D scanning and reconstruction.
- Created automatic pipeline for camera calibration and relative pose estimation.
Harvard Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering
Automation Research Engineer, Lewis Research Group, Microrobotics Laboratory, Cambridge, MA.
- Designed and fabricated 3D-printable soft robots and conductive circuits.
- Created a framework for parametric design of modular microfluidic functional structures.
- Developed software tool-chains and slicing algorithms for fabricating 3D printable electronics.
Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
Undergraduate Researcher, Lewis Research Group, Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Cambridge, MA.
- Adapted open-source 3D printing software for use on custom multi-material additive manufacturing.
- Fabricated novel hybrid ink+thermoplastic extruder and patterning processes for 3D printers.
- Scripted automatic G-code sequences for a custom multi-material bio-printer.
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Teaching Assistant / Machine Shop Assistant / Lab Monitor, Design and Manufacturing Laboratories, Worcester, MA.
- Supervised CNC machining classes of up to 12 students.
- Maintained machines and shop facilities and set up new equipment.
- Assisted students with CAM designs and CNC setup and operation for manufacturing projects.
Selected Publications
Certifications
Class IV Operator.
Open Water SDI.
Technician
10-Hour General Industry.
Skills
Robotics
ROS1/2, SLAM, Sensor Fusion, Planning/Navigation, Computer Vision, Machine Learning, Data Analysis, 3D Transform Math, 3D Visualizations, Motor Controllers, CAN, IO-Link, ZMQ, Industrial Robot Arms, Haptic Interfaces, Series-Elastic Actuators, AR/VR.
Software
Python, C/C++, C# (Unity), CMake, Git, SCRUM, Embedded Systems.
Hardware
CAD (OnShape, Autodesk Inventor), CAM, Engineering Drawings, Design for 3D Printing.
Prototyping
3D Printing, Laser Cutting, CNC Milling and Turning, Sheet Metal Fabrication, Hand Tools.
Activities - MIT
Activities - WPI
Let's connect!
Let's connect for collaboration, networking, or simply staying in touch.
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Phone
+1-413-210-7630 -
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Address
San Francisco