Perception · Motion Planning · Control Systems

KushantPatel

Technology Engineer / Brookhaven National Laboratory

I build software that helps robots and instruments perceive, map, and move through the physical world.

Open to research collaborations Queens, NY
ROLE Technology Engineer
ORG  Brookhaven Nat’l Lab
SYS  ONLINE
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STACK / EPICS / ROS 1·2 / MoveIt2 / Bluesky / Isaac Sim / PyTorch / C++ 11·14 / Python / Docker / Ansible
At a glance
5+
Years in Robotics
Autonomous systems, perception & control
2
National Labs
Berkeley Lab · Brookhaven National Lab
2nd
SAE AutoDrive
Nationally in autonomous vehicle challenge
6
Publications
Peer-reviewed papers & conference proceedings
Spot
Quadruped AI
Boston Dynamics platform, nuclear inspection
ROS2
Core Stack
EPICS · MoveIt2 · PyTorch · Isaac Sim
MASc
Waterloo '21
Mechatronics Engineering
01

Currently

I’m a robotics and machine-learning engineer working where perception meets controls — the software that lets machines sense and act in the physical world.

A UWaterloo MASc (Mechatronics) alum with 5+ years across autonomous systems, computer vision, and control software. Right now I’m at Brookhaven National Laboratory, developing high-precision motion control and EPICS-based control systems for advanced synchrotron beamlines — including robotic sample exchange with UR and Stäubli arms, operator interfaces, and the deployment and testing that keeps experiments running.

Before Brookhaven I spent two years at Berkeley Lab teaching quadruped robots to map and inspect nuclear material, and a year at the UC Davis Neuroprosthetics Lab building closed-loop brain-computer interfaces. The throughline is the same: give a machine good sensors, a model of its world, and a way to move through it.

02

Experience

2025Present
Technology Engineer
Brookhaven National Laboratory — Upton, NY

High-precision motion control and EPICS control software for synchrotron beamlines. Built robotic sample-exchange workflows with UR and Stäubli arms, operator interfaces for experiments, and supported deployment, testing, and maintenance of control systems.

EPICSBlueskyROS2MoveIt2Isaac SimAnsible
20232025
Sr. Scientific Engineer
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory — Berkeley, CA

Computer-vision and robotics research for nuclear safeguards: multi-sensor fusion (camera + lidar), SLAM and motion planning, point-cloud 3D mapping, and radiation-detection software running on quadruped platforms.

C++ 11/14ROS 1/2PyTorchPoint cloudsDockerCI/CD
20222023
Data Scientist
UC Davis Neuroprosthetics Lab — Davis, CA

Machine learning for neural decoding — RNN and language-model speech decoders, computer-vision pose estimation, and analysis of brain datasets — while co-developing BRAND, a closed-loop deep-network platform for BCI experiments.

PyTorchRNNsNumPyComputer Vision
20192022
Technical Division Lead — Motion Planning
WATonomous (AV Research) — Waterloo, ON

Motion planning and control for a full-scale autonomous vehicle: sampling-based planners, MPC and PID control, plus scalable sensor interfaces for cameras, lidars, IMUs, and radar. Validated algorithms in Foxglove and RViz on GPU clusters.

C++PythonROSMATLABOpenCVMPC/PID
20172019
Senior Software Engineer
TIBCO Software — Pune, India

Delivered analytics and data-integration solutions across banking, energy, and telecom. Built interactive dashboards and statistical models, and ensured data accuracy across warehousing and governance.

SQLPythonRSpotfireTableauPower BI
03

What I Build

BEAM
A / Instrumentation

Beamline Control & Motion

Motion control, EPICS integration, and robotic sample exchange that turn synchrotron beamlines into precise, repeatable experimental instruments.

Brookhaven National Lab
UF6 · RAD-MAP
B / Autonomy

Inspection & Safeguards

Quadruped robots that fuse camera, lidar, and gamma-ray data to build 3D rad-maps, navigate cluttered facilities, and verify nuclear material containers.

Berkeley Lab — Applied Nuclear Physics
RNN CLOSED LOOP
C / Neural ML

Brain-Computer Interfaces

Real-time deep-network deployment for closed-loop BCIs — speech decoding and pose estimation under tight latency constraints.

UC Davis Neuroprosthetics Lab
04

In the Field

06

Recognition

2025

Clinical Research Forum — Top U.S. Study

Helped build BRAND, the closed-loop deep-learning platform behind speech-restoration research for people with ALS — recognized among the nation’s top clinical research studies.

2024

Rad Maps with Robot Dogs

Featured in Berkeley Lab’s Nuclear Science Division for autonomous radiation mapping and inspection using quadruped robots.

Read the feature ↗
2019–22

SAE AutoDrive Challenge — 2nd Nationally

Led and contributed to WATonomous, placing 2nd nationally in the SAE AutoDrive Challenge alongside multiple national robotics-competition wins.

LBNL

Nuclear Safeguards Research

Contributed to autonomous measurement systems for UF₆ cylinders, robotic radiation-detector platforms (IV-DRIP), and path-planning for nuclear-container inspection.

Get in touch

Let’s build something that sees.

Open to research collaborations and roles in robotics, perception, and controls. The fastest way to reach me is email.

kushantp58@gmail.com  ↗