David Akhihiero

About

Robotics software engineer with internship experience at Lucid Motors building a mapping/localization pipeline that fuses LiDAR, camera, and GPS into high-fidelity 3D maps for autonomy/ADAS. Strong in SLAM and multi-robot systems—has modified ROS/ROS2 SLAM packages (FAST-LIO2, LIO-SAM) at the source level, optimized real-time multi-drone coordination for low-latency data sharing, and used Gazebo + Docker to simulate and deploy research robotics stacks.

Experience

Education

Key Strengths

• Built mapping/localization pipeline using LiDAR, camera, and GPS for high-fidelity 3D maps (ADAS/autonomy)
• Solved difficult calibration and synchronization issues (LiDAR-IMU extrinsics, GPS-referenced time alignment)
• Hands-on ROS/ROS2 SLAM integration and source-level modification (e.g., exposing hard-coded noise parameters in LIO-SAM)
• Real-time multi-drone coordination optimization (reduced latency, timestamp matching, improved flight stability)
• Heterogeneous robot communication design (UAV/UGV state estimate sharing with range constraints)
• Simulation-driven development using Gazebo (cave/mine mapping + relocalization testing)
• Reproducible robotics environments via Docker containers for ROS packages