Jan 2023 – Sep 2024 · 1 yr 8 mos

• Generating timelines and managing active projects by coordinating with various departments to develop concepts and solutions for next generation products and aircraft for future Urban Air Mobility (UAM) operations.
• Conceptualization of Logistics Drone Delivery and Passenger Air Taxi operational ecosystems through development of User Stories and Workflow - deep diving into different swimlanes i.e Maintenance, Customer, Logistics and Flight Operations.
• Design and Mapping of Operational Routes and Networks through assessment different variables such as Aircraft capabilities and Performance, regulatory constraints and customer requirements.
• Ideation, build and management of a new Ground Control Station for Pilots - including compact hardware designs, GUIs for Engineering and Pilot Displays with WCA (Warning, Caution and Alert) system, for improved situational awareness.
• Developed a simplified flight test process and Operations Manual for Unmanned Aircraft Operations in Open and Specific Category, in accordance with EASA Regulations 2019/947, for R&D Flight Test Operations in Germany.
• Active participant in the assessment and commenting of Means of Compliance (MoC) drafts, as a part of Special Conditions (SC) Light UAS, published by EASA - forming the framework and high-level requirements for next generation UAS.

May 2020 – Jan 2023 · 2 yrs 8 mos

• Daily activities included maintaining aircraft documentation for airworthiness and operations in Germany, coordinating with engineering teams for conducting flight tests to assess aircraft performance and facilitate future development.
• Performed Specific Operational Risk Assessment (SORA), conducted Test Hazard Assessments (THAs), generated Concept of Operations and was a part of the demonstration crew as an Unmanned Test Pilot for the VoloDrone Demonstration at ITS (Intelligent Transport Systems) Conference at Hamburg, October 2021.
• Lead team as Flight Test Engineer and Pilot in Command of the VoloDrone during demonstration flights for Civil Aviation and regulatory authorities , namely Luftfahrt-Bundesamt (LBA - Civil Aviation Authority in Germany), European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and GACA (General Authority of Civil Aviation, Saudi Arabia)
• Involved in the planning and execution of automated deconfliction flights between crewed and uncrewed aircraft, as a part of CORUS XUAM demonstrations held at the National Experimental Test Center for Unmanned Aircraft Systems of DLR at Magdeburg - Cochstedt airport, in Nov 2022.

Mar 2019 – Feb 2020 · 11 mos · Helsinki Area, Finland

• Generating BOMs, Assembly and Testing of UAVs. Setting up auxiliary components and companion computers for Module testing. Modules were tested for both PX4 and the Ardupilot (Copter) flight stacks. Good understanding of payloads, hardware and sensor integrations.
• Coordinating with Software Leads to understand the requirements,generating test plans and methods, performing or assigning tests, analysing logs to provide feedbacks based on flight tests, dynamics and performance for parametric improvements on the software stack for betterment of the modules. Tested Modules include Sense & Avoid and Precision Landing. Gathered basic knowledge of ROS, MAVLINK and MAVROS topics and commands.
• Played a key role in implementing and operating the ByDrone project. Designed and registered the temporary airspace EFD584 - Otaniemi - Lauttasaari to allow BVLOS UAV operations. Generated an operations manual for the drones, to be submitted to the local regulatory authority - TRAFICOM, for flight approvals. 30 autonomous deliveries were conducted collectively in and around Otaniemi and Lauttasaari region, to demonstrate the feasibility of UAVs in Logistics. Pilot in Command for Tests and Operations.
• Demonstrated a 5G enabled Drone concept to Elisa at Elisa HQ, Pasila to showcase 5G connectivity and implementation for BVLOS operations with live video streaming. Conducted flight tests for our partners in Portugal, to collect thermal data, for the development of an AI based, drone assisted wildfire detection and suppression project.

Sep 2017 – Mar 2019 · 1 yr 6 mos · Bengaluru

• Handled manufacturing and deliveries, independently took part in technical discussions, demonstrations to the Indian Air Force, major SBUs of Bharat Electronics Limited (Electronic Warfare & Avionics and Military Radar) and several other private companies.
• Worked on implementation of Machine Learning and Computer Vision algorithms for development of smarter drones, capable of object identification, tracking and a variety of other computations.
• Barcode Detection Algorithm - Neural network trained using tensorflow for live detection of barcodes from a source video or integrated cameras.
• Object Detection using YOLOv2
• Integration and implementation of RTK GNSS for survey grade UAVs, to improve geolocation accuracy.
• Flight data analysis, to enhance performance and endurance by fine tuning parameters and to resolve or alleviate issues if any.

Feb 2017 – Aug 2017 · 6 mos · Bengaluru

• Assembly and Testing of Quadcopter and fixed wing UAVs that run on open source flight management programs, for surveying and mapping, with an active involvement in UAV research and development. Good understanding of on board electronics.
• Setup and tuning for auxiliary systems such as gyro stabilized BLDC powered gimbals.
• Developed a standalone application to geotag images from drone binary logs.
• R&D projects include:
• Development of a autonomous data transfer system, through companion computers on board for post mission data processing.
• Augmentation and implementation of open source flight firmwares for unique Quadcopter configurations.

Jun 2016 – Oct 2016 · 4 mos · Cranfield

• Discussion and clarification of queries from prospective students around the world through telephonic conversations, to help them accept their admission offers and process their applications further.
• Analysing, proof-reading social media content to provide opinions and options for future campaigns.

Sep 2013 – Jun 2014 · 9 mos · Bengaluru Area, India

• Planning and execution of events organised by the department.
• Organised Revamp 2014 - Annual College Festival, Mechane 2013 - State Level Technical Seminar, Reva Run - 2013 (A Go-Green Initiative)

Jan 2013 – Feb 2013 · 1 mo · Bengaluru Area, India

• Training at Engine Division of HAL gave me a technical insight into the various process that aircraft engines go through in their production starting from procurement of raw materials to the finished product. I got an opportunity to witness various manufacturing techniques such as lathe, milling, boring, drilling, jig boring, CNC, turbine blade manufacturing, sheet metal, pipe bending etc.
• Chemical treatment of components, coating, carburizing, nitriding, shot peening were some of the post manufacturing methods I got to observe. I also got an opportunity to perform non-destructive testing, metrological testing and inspection of engine components. Assembly shop gave us a peak into the various assembly stages of an Adour MK-811 engine and Artouste III B engine.