AI Developer · Robotics & Mechatronics Engineer

NEELASH KANNAN

I build machines that move through the real world — SLAM navigation, teleoperation, interfaces that read the human body — and the agent workflows that turn tickets into tested, review-ready code.

Base: Edinburgh, UK
Now: AI Developer, Invyt.co & SvayEd.ai
Status: Open to roles

CLAUDE CODE · CODEX · BROWSER USE · ROS1 / ROS2 · HECTOR SLAM · NAV2 · GAZEBO · ISAAC SIM · OPENCV · MEDIAPIPE · JETSON · ESP32 · RP2040 · RASPBERRY PI · 2D LIDAR · REALSENSE · IMU · PYTHON · C++ · TYPESCRIPT · EMBEDDED C · NEXT.JS · SUPABASE · FUSION360 · SOLIDWORKS · SIEMENS NX · CATIA · DOCKER · MQTT · ESP-NOW ·

[ 01 ]

About

I work at the boundary between the digital and the physical: agentic software, autonomous navigation, teleoperation, and machines that read the human body.

I have shipped a LiDAR-mapping service robot, an EMG-driven prosthetic hand, a 16-servo teleoperated semi-humanoid and an LLM-powered companion robot. Every project on this page is a real machine that was tested, broken, rebuilt and demoed — two of them published in international conference proceedings, one presented at the G20.

Right now I am an AI Developer at Invyt.co in London and at SvayEd.ai, designing repository-aware agent workflows — Claude Code, Codex, Traycer and OpenCode among them — that turn product tickets into scoped implementations, targeted tests and review-ready changes, with browser-driven end-to-end validation and humans holding the review and release gates. I hold an MSc in Robotics with Industrial Application from Heriot-Watt, and I still run Robonium — a small studio in India doing additive manufacturing and mobile robots. What interests me most is where software agents and hardware meet: agentic engineering, robot perception, embedded systems and additive manufacturing.

Read the CV

0
Machines shipped: 0
Servos on one robot: 0
Papers published: 0
Unibots UK, 2025

[ 02 ]

Selected work

2020 — 2026 / 08 entries

01

Autonomous Robot Butler

2D LiDAR + Hector SLAM on ROS1 Noetic; QR-docked table service with a Streamlit / Firebase order stack. Published, AIP Conf. Proc. 2023.
- ROS1
- Hector SLAM
- Raspberry Pi 4
Autonomous Navigation
02

EMG Prosthetic Hand

Surface EMG from the forearm drives five servo-tendon fingers with flex-sensor feedback for proportional grip. Built in 36 hours.
- MyoWare EMG
- Arduino
- Servo tendons
Human–Machine Interface
03

Semi-Humanoid Teleoperated Robot

MediaPipe Holistic turns one webcam into 16 servo commands; a YDLIDAR X4 runs VSLAM on a differential-drive base. Presented at the G20.
- MediaPipe
- VSLAM
- PCA9685
Teleoperation
04

AMIGO, The Companion Robot

An offline speech-in / speech-out companion: Whisper → Mistral with RAG grounding → FishSpeech, plus vision-based person following.
- Mistral 7B
- Whisper
- RAG
Social Robotics
05

VLM Map Exploration

Semantic frontier selection for ROS2: a vision-language model reasons about the scene to choose the next frontier instead of nearest-first heuristics.
- ROS2
- VLM
- Open source
Autonomous Exploration
06

Unibots UK Robot

An autonomous ball collector built sim-first in a custom ROS2 / Gazebo arena, then deployed to hardware. 6th nationwide, 2025.
- ROS2
- Gazebo
- Sim-to-real
Competition Robotics
07

ROS2 Installer CLI

One Python file that replaces a Docker stack and a wall of apt commands. Shipped through its own Homebrew tap.
- Python
- Homebrew
- CLI
Open Source
08

Energy-Efficient Sensor Network

Battery ESP32 nodes gossip over ESP-NOW to a gateway that hands off across I2C to a dedicated MQTT publisher — radio duty cycle stays near zero.
- ESP32
- ESP-NOW
- MQTT
Embedded IoT

[ 03 ]

Experience

Where I have built

Jul 2026 — Present

AI Developer, Agentic Workflow Automation

SvayEd.ai — Remote, US

I run Codex, Claude Code, Traycer, Pi.dev, OpenCode and Command Code as complementary coding harnesses on a Next.js, React and Supabase AI learning platform, with humans reviewing generated code, database changes and releases. Browser Use and ego lite automate regression and end-to-end validation of critical user journeys, and failures feed targeted fixes and repeat tests. My work spans AI tutoring, retrieval, feedback and content-review flows: PostgreSQL / Supabase migrations, state machines and regression tooling, with Jira task context wired in so agents build against the right architecture and acceptance criteria.

Claude Code / Codex
Supabase
Browser Use

Jan 2026 — Present

AI Developer, Agentic Automation & Developer Productivity

Invyt.co — London, UK

I design and operate repository-aware AI development workflows that turn product tickets into scoped implementations, targeted tests and review-ready changes under human approval gates. I configure specialist planning, frontend, backend, debugging, testing and review agents with project-specific architecture, security and quality controls, and automate browser-based regression with Browser Use and ego lite. These workflows accelerate delivery across registration, attendee data, payments, media and event operations, while engineers keep code review and release decisions.

Agent workflows
Automated testing
Developer productivity

Jul — Nov 2025

Mechatronics Engineering Intern

IntelliDigest — Edinburgh, UK

Designed a dual-microcontroller control system (ESP32 + RP2040) with integrated motor drivers for the iDigest bio-upcycling food-waste robot. ESP32 handled Wi-Fi and telemetry while the RP2040 ran real-time motor control off Programmable I/O, closing the loop on temperature, moisture and motor feedback.

ESP32
RP2040 PIO
Closed-loop control

Dec 2023 — Present

Founder

Robonium — Coimbatore, India

Built custom 3D printers and ran them headless through OctoPrint on Raspberry Pi with remote monitoring, automated queuing and failure detection. Shipped a web platform doing STL analysis, live pricing and order management, and advised customers on design for additive manufacturing.

OctoPrint
STL analysis
DfAM

Jan — Nov 2023

CAD Design Intern, Motor Team

Valeo India Pvt. Ltd. — Chennai

Modelled automotive motor components and assemblies in CATIA and Siemens NX, applying GD&T to hold manufacturing tolerance, and worked with the motor team on design changes for performance and manufacturability.

CATIA
Siemens NX
GD&T

Aug 2019 — Feb 2022

STEM Instructor & Developer

STEMians — Coimbatore, India

Taught embedded C, Fusion 360 CAD and automation as a freelance STEM instructor, with the first four months also spent full-time as a developer on automation work.

Embedded C
Fusion 360
Automation

[ 04 ]

Education

Where I learned it

2024 — 2026

MSc Robotics with Industrial Application

Heriot-Watt University — Edinburgh, UK

Autonomous navigation on the ROS Navigation Stack across ROS1/ROS2 and Gazebo, kinematics and control of robotic systems, and motion planning for obstacle avoidance — on simulated and real platforms.

ROS Navigation
Kinematics & control
Motion planning

2019 — 2023

B.E. Mechatronics Engineering

Sri Krishna College of Engineering and Technology — India

Mechanics, electronics and software taken together. Led campus robotics-club builds and national hackathon teams; final-year work published in international conference proceedings.

Mechatronics
Robotics club lead
Published

[ 05 ]

Systems

What I reach for

Agentic AI & Automation

Claude Code
Codex
Traycer
Pi.dev
OpenCode
Command Code
Subagents
Browser Use
ego lite
E2E test automation

Robotics & Autonomy

ROS1 Noetic
ROS2
Nav2
Hector SLAM
VSLAM
Gazebo
Isaac Sim

Perception & AI

OpenCV
MediaPipe
LLMs
RAG
Whisper
VLMs

Programming

Python
C / C++
TypeScript / JavaScript
Embedded C
MATLAB

Hardware & Sensors

NVIDIA Jetson
Raspberry Pi
ESP32
RP2040
Arduino
2D LiDAR
RealSense
IMU

Mechanical / CAD

Fusion360
SOLIDWORKS
Siemens NX
CATIA
AutoCAD
GD&T
DfAM
3D printing

Platform & Web

Next.js
React
Supabase / PostgreSQL
Docker
Linux
Git
CI/CD
Jira
Flask
Streamlit
Firebase
MQTT

[ 06 ]

Signal

Awards, patent, papers, certifications

Smart India Hackathon — 2022

Special Category Winner

Built a VR/AR virtual laboratory over a five-day national hackathon, giving students remote access to physical lab experiments.

Patent 202241070465 — 2022

Virtual Laboratory for Science Subjects

A 3D-printed VR wearable — biconvex lens, headphones and a smartphone display — that lets students run science experiments virtually, navigating by moving the headset and interacting through a glove controller. Patented with co-inventors.

Unibots UK — 2025

National Finalist, 6th Place

Raced an autonomous ball-collecting robot against university teams from across the UK, using a mobile perception system that streamed depth and pose off an iPhone over a custom network link.

Engineers Without Borders UK — 2026

Chapter Designathon Finalist

Represented the Heriot-Watt Engineers Without Borders chapter at the national Designathon Finals in Birmingham, presenting a community-scale engineering response for Cape York, Australia.

Publications

Design and Fabrication of Autonomous Robot Butler AIP Conf. Proc. 2914, 040003 — 2023

Design and Fabrication of Smart Electric Bike AIP Conference Proceedings — 2023

Certifications

Introduction to Subagents — Anthropic Academy, 2026
Agents and Workflows — OpenAI Academy, 2026
SOLIDWORKS Additive Manufacturing Associate — Dassault Systèmes, 2025
SOLIDWORKS Sustainability Associate — Dassault Systèmes, 2025
ROS1 Basics in 5 Days — The Construct
ROS Navigation in 5 Days — The Construct
Sensor Data Fusion for Localization — The Construct

Languages

English — Fluent
Tamil — Native
Telugu — Conversational

[ 07 ] Get in touch

LET’S BUILD REAL MACHINES

neelashkannan@outlook.com