Why Embedded Systems?

Being a proactive person and eager to learn, I'm impassioned to explore the Embedded Systems domain & its applications to achieve my end goal of bringing out a positive shift in the society. I have always tried to accomplish this goal from my Projects, Professional experiences as well as my Research Publications ranging from Healthcare, Security to Environmental Protection. The most exciting part which I feel while working in this domain is the opportunity it provides me to traverse through all the three layers i.e Hardware, Firmware and Software to debug and resolve the problems. I always attempt multiple techniques to approach to a problem's solution with perseverance and try to maintain a good collaborative team spirit.

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My Approach to get better!

Gaining Professional Experience: Currently, I am working as Embedded Software Engineer at Radar and prior to that, I worked as Embedded Software Engineer at Intel - Solidigm. Additionally, I worked as a Firmware Development Intern at Matrix Industries and pursued internship at SK Hynix to gain work experiences which are strongly relevant to Embedded Systems domain.
Masters in Embedded Systems at University of Colorado Boulder (Graduated in May 21) The courses and projects in this Professional Masters degree helped me to gain industry level experience.
Bachelors in Electronics & Communications at University of Mumbai(India) Helped me to gain theoretical & practical knowledge about to Microprocessors, Controllers, Operating Systems and basics of Electrical Engineering.

Skills

  •

    Hardware & Controllers

    FRDM-KL25Z (Cortex M0+),MSP432,
    Jetson Nano (Cortex A57), 8051, DE-10 FPGA,
    Raspberry Pi 3/0,Nordic nrf-9160

  • Programming

    C, Assembly, Embedded C, Java, Python,
    Shell Scripting, Git, Makefile, Socket Programming.

  • Software & IDEs

    MCUXpresso, Texas Instruments Code Composer Studio,
    Keil, VHDL, Agile, Edsim51, MATLAB (Simulink), Proteus,
    Scrum, Visual Studio, WinSim,Nordic Nrf Connect, Confluence

  • Debugging Tools

    Oscilloscope, Logic Analyzer, GDB, Valgrind memoryleak detector,
    PCB Schematics, UML diagram, uCunit test, Regressive & Intrusive testing.

  • Operating Systems & Protocols

    Linux, FreeRTOS, Raspbian, AWS, Windows, Zephyr RTOS
    NVMe, I2C, UART, SPI, MQTT, TCP/IP, Bit Banging


Click on Project Image to view the Code!

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MSP-432 based Bluetooth MP3 player

Programmed MSP432 with FAT16 system SD card & VS1053 decoder by writing SPI protocol to play music on 8 Ω speaker through LM386 based Audio amplifier. For detailed description and Code, please visit the Github Link below.

Github Link

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Secure My Car

Developed a Socket Client Server API running in Daemon mode using TCP/IP protocol based Ethernet Connection. Interfaced Fingerprint, Ultrasonic and TMP-102 sensor with two Tiva Clients to send data to BeagleBone Multithreaded Server

Github Link

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Autonomous Car Breaking System

Designed a Hard Real-Time Embedded System using Rate Monotonic Scheduling Algorithm. Used OpenCv Object Detection tool on the R-Pi 3 interfaced with Rpi Camera to detect road signs and regulate the car speed.

Github Link

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Bluetooth Mesh Based Home Surveillance System

Designed Low-Power Wireless Bluetooth Mesh Network between Friend Node & Low Power Nodes with PIR and SOund Detector Sensors. The project also included the usage of Persistent Storage, Event driven state machine, and Energy Optimization with the help of Silicon Labs Energy Profiler.

Github Link

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Embedded Firmware and Hardware Design

Designed an Embedded System from scratch including the Hardware interfacing of 8051, power regulator, latch, clock & reset circuitry, NVRAM & RS232. At Firmware level, performed Bare-metal Memory alloc/dealloc by configuring SPLD and interfaced EEPROM using I2C. Designed Schematics & used Debugging tools like Logic Analyser & Digital Oscilloscope in the process.

Github Link

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Embedded Software 6 Projects

1. C logical expressions, ASCII, Strings
2. Cross-Compiled Makefile.
3. Memory Test Utility & Unittesting
4.State Oriented & Table-driven State Machine based I2C sensor TMP-102 interfacing.
5. UART based Circular Buffer
6. FreeRTOS DAC, ADC, DMA, DSP tasks.

Github Link

My Professional Timeline

Jan 24 - Present

Embedded Software Engineer

RADAЯ

• Engineered first stage bring-up and low-level debugging of Xilinx ZynqMP-based embedded platform, addressing DDR and watchdog issues using JTAG, U-Boot, and PetaLinux.

• Reduced QSPI & EEPROM footprint from dual-chip to single-chip design and optimized Yocto recipes-bsp boot scripts, resulting in a six-figure cost savings; configured Baseband DAC & ADC registers & interfaced accelerometer.

• Implemented background C++ services using Boost and syslog for NTP sync, SSL certificate renewal, hardware health monitoring, and periodic telemetry, improving remote diagnostics across 13,000+ sensors in stores.

• Built and deployed a Python-based RF analysis tool using NumPy, SciPy, and SCPI-over-LAN communication to automate 34-hour spectrum hopping validation, supporting FCC compliance efforts.

• Automated PoE switch diagnostics across 550+ retail stores via Python’s telnetlib, analyzing MAC tables, cable tests, and port status; built syslog parsers with pandas/matplotlib to visualize tag reads & remote SSH real-time debugging.

June 21 - Dec 23

Firmware Engineer

Intel - Solidigm

• Worked on Firmware development and testing of PCIe Gen 5 SSD products with focus on NVMe Transport Layer.

• Designed & Programmed NVMe admin commands to optimize the SSD storage capacity & processing speeds.

• Implemented C++ thread-safe state machines for handling drive resets, IO queues & loading File system files to DRAM.

• Debugged firmware sightings & wrote integration tests for robustness of features’ functionality.

• Handled scrum master role abiding agile process for sprints spanning eight months and provided onsite LabOps support.

Feb 21 - May 21

SSD Firmware Security Intern

Sk Hynix Memory Solutions America

• Worked on debugging Simulator test scripts to evaluate the Crypto algorithmic features of Self Encrypting Drives.
• Developed firmware and reviewed the Source code for crypto algorithms according to TCG specifications.

May 20 - Aug 20

Firmware Development Intern

Matrix Industries

• Worked on Building Custom Toolchain to develop the Ultra Low Power LTE-M Cellular IoT device in Zephyr RTOS environment.
• Made time multiplexed GPS & LTE-M network to work concurrently using Augmented GPS technique (A-GPS) & analyzed LTE-DRX & PSM mode for power optimization.
• Interfaced nrf-9160 with BME280 Sensor using Overlay files to transfer readings using MQTT on AWS IoT Platform with appropriate Data Visualization tool.

April 20 - June 20

ADCS Flight Software Engineer

Maxwell Cubesat

• Integrated & Calibrated Triaxial Gyroscope & Magnetometer with the Nanosatellite’s Attitude & Determination Control System & optimized current usage from 155 uA to ~35uA on BeagleBone Black.
• Developed Full Functional Unit Test Framework to verify the working of sensors & actuators before Nanosatellite launch.
• Worked with GitLab version control, developing ADCS’ subsystem Schematics, documenting code extensively using Doxygen.

Jan 20 - May 20

Teaching Assistant for ‘Programming of Digital Systems’ course

University of Colorado Boulder

• Conducted project demos, debugging on Nios II processor based FPGA & performing code review adhering to the guidelines.
• Assisted professor in redesigning the course assignments which are based on pipelining, caching & virtual memory management.

Sept 19 - Dec 19

Electrical Team Member

RoboSub - CU Boulder

• Established UART to USB communication between EFM32 (ARM Cortex M3) & main GPU of the RoboSub for motor control
• Implemented I2C protocol between EFM32 & depth control sensor for underwater topographical data acquisition & logging.

June 19 - July 19

Python GUI & Machine Learning Intern

Fox Domotics Pvt. Ltd, India

• Implemented the logistic regression methods using on the Google Playstore dataset for predicting the best Category of application to be launched by the company.
• Also, wrote Pytest automated script for C program to check Architecture Endianness.

July 18 - Oct 18

IoT & Product Design Research Intern

WKA Technologies (IIT Bombay), India

• Designed Universal IR T.V remote using LIRC (Linux Infrared Remote Control) codes on Raspberry Pi-0 (ARM v7 processor).
• Decoded NEC IR codes of T.V & AC remotes using ESP32 WiFi chip & designed an IR transmitter hemispherical circuit using ESP8266 (802.11 b/g/n WiFi)
• Incorporated Alexa’s voice control feature using Amazon Web Services (AWS) to the product.

Click on the image to read the Technical Publication & view Accolades!

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Optimal Robot Localization Techniques in Real World Scenarios

• Co-authored and published a paper on the same in IEEE International Conference on Computing, Communication, Control and Automation (ICCUBEA) 2018 with ISBN (978-1-5386-5257-2).
• Speculated deeply on disparate Robot localization methods in Indoor, Underwater and Cosmic Environment.

Paper PDF

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Defibrillator Drone

• Co-authored and published a paper on this project with a heart attack warning system in the International Conference on Advanced Trends in Engineering (ICATE) 2017 with ISBN: (978-93-86171-02-3).
• Selected amongst the top five innovative ideas in EIDOLON 2017 competition organized by IET (Institution of Engineering and Technology) and presented the paper in IEEE events Innovision and Technomania 2017.

Paper PDF

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Student Ambassador at Indian Development Foundation (NGO)

• Worked as a Student Ambassador at Indian Development Foundation NGO and actively volunteered in activities like teaching underprivileged students in schools & was a W2K (Waste to knowledge) Drive Member.

• Prior to that , I was a Volunteer and Social Webpage Editor at Adore India NGO.

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ARM University Program Training Course

Completed the 'Embedded System Design and Programming course' and built interesting projects on NXP FRDM-KL25z board during the course and implemented IoT based projects on ARM mbed platform & Node-Red.

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Cypress University Alliance Training Program

Completed this course on 'Internet of Things (IoT) where I designed BLE beacon based projects on PSoC 4 board using PSoC Creator

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Intro to Computer Science & Python Programming Course

• Having proficiency in Embedded C and Assembly Language at Firmware level, I wanted to gain knowledge about Python Programming Language,and Sorting Algorithms forming the basis of Computer Science.
• Accomplished this goal by pursuing this Online course taught by Prof. Eric Grimson from Massachusetts Institute of Technology

My Courses

  • Masters in Electrical Engineering with Specialisation in Embedded Systems & IoT

    University of Colorado Boulder (2019 - Present)

    • Embedded Systems Design This course involved development of an Embedded System from scratch including 8051 controller, power regulator, latch, clock & reset circuitry, NVRAM & RS232. It helped me to gain hands-on Bare-metal Embedded C programming for its Memory alloc/dealloc & Mapping, Bus Cycles, Interrupts & ISRs and Communication Protocols

    • Principles of Embedded Software This course involved six projects including Cross Compilation & Makefiles, Memory Utility, Register-level I2c, FreeRTOS based ADC & DMA tasks and Introduction to State and Table Driven State Machines. Also, the projects introduced me to Unittesting for exploiting corner cases & Git Version Control.

    • Advanced Embedded Software Development This course helped me to gain theoretical & practical knowledge of Linux Kernel Development using Buildroot & Yocto, File I/O, Threading, Signals, and time related POSIX APIs, System Calls Server-Client Socket Programming, Bash Automated Scripting & Linux Device Drivers Development.

    • Real-Time Embedded Systems This course provided in-depth practical knowledge about Hard & Soft Real Time Services, Multithreading concepts, Deadlocks, Preemption, Scheduling policies & Algorithms, Locking Mechanisms like Semaphores, Mutexes, CPU Utilization & Optimization etc


    • IoT Embedded Firmware This course provided me comprehensive knowledge about developing event driven state machine based low-level Firmware to optimize power usage and designing inter-operable Bluetooth Smart product. Furthermore, It involved Bluetooth Mesh Design along with
    features such as Persistent Storage & Out-of-Band Authentication to prevent Man-In-The-Middle Attacks

    • Mastering Embedded Systems Architecture

    • Developing Industrial IoT

    • Practical PCB Design

    • Wireless LAN

    Bachelors in Electronics & Telecommunications Engineering

    University of Mumbai (2014 - 2018)

    • Microcontrollers & Peripherals

    • Operating Systems

    • Structured Programming Approach using C

    • Microprocessors

    • Object Oriented Programming

    • Wireless Networks

    • VLSI Design

    • Analog Electronics & Integrated Circuits

7

Professional Experiences

12

Relevant Academic Courses & Research Publications

100

Motivation to Build Something Great

Testimonials

What I love to do!

Cycling & Exploring!

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Playing Cricket & Soccer!

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Working for NGOs!

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Playing Guitar & Singing!

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Contact

Phone:

(+1) 720-592-8806

atharv.desai@colorado.edu

LinkedIn

Github