// embedded systems & robotics engineer

David Li

Electrical Engineering student at Georgia Tech building the embedded software and control systems that sit between hardware and intelligence — BMS firmware and CAN diagnostics, GPU-accelerated perception, and the generative tools reshaping CAD.

01 About

David Li

I'm an Electrical Engineering student in the Honors Program at Georgia Tech (B.S. EE, CS & Intelligence minor), focused on the embedded software and control systems that sit between hardware and intelligence — firmware that talks to sensors, diagnostics pipelines that catch failures before they happen, and perception code that turns raw signals into decisions.

That's shown up as E2E BMS firmware for GT's Formula SAE Electric team, diagnostics tooling for Rivian and Volkswagen's shared systems-integration group, a physical-interface redesign for NASA's lunar terrain vehicle dashboard, and — as co-founder of Tabl AI — using generative models to make parametric CAD editing feel intuitive instead of brittle.

I care about signal integrity as much as software architecture, and about tools that make the next engineer's onboarding faster, not slower.

Embedded Systems C++ / Python CAN / UDS / IsoSPI STM32 Controls Generative AI

02 Experience

Fall 2026

Embedded Software Engineer Intern // Zipline — New Products Team

Joining Zipline's New Products team to work across computational physics modeling, drone simulation and modeling, motor controls software, and signal processing / noise suppression for next-generation autonomous delivery aircraft.

Computational PhysicsDrone SimulationMotor ControlsSignal Processing
Summer 2025 — Summer 2026

Software Engineering Intern // RVTech — Rivian & Volkswagen Group Technologies

Systems Integration (Summer 2026) — Developed SIL test suites for LOC diagnostics across all vehicle zones for CI/CD regression testing, root-caused false-failure DTC triggers, and prototyped memory-safe concurrent OBD data processing utilities.

Embedded Systems, SDE (Summer 2025) — Built a Bazel-integrated OBD data-capture framework for BMS diagnostics across ECUs and platforms, integrated codegen for domain-specific diagnostic monitors, and debugged bench-vs-fleet discrepancies using UDE and UDS clients.

CI/CDBazelCAN / UDSOBD Diagnostics
Aug 2024 — Present

Electrical Lead // HyTech Racing — Formula SAE Electric

Electrical Lead (June 2025 – Present) — Leading a 100+ member electrical team, setting design standards and onboarding new engineers each semester; expanded the sensor suite with advanced filtering for precise SoC estimation and control algorithms.

HV PCB & Firmware Developer (Aug 2024 – June 2025) — Developed C++ BMS firmware on STM32 over IsoSPI daisy-chain telemetry, validated fault-free CAN/Ethernet communication, and characterized signal integrity with oscilloscopes and logic analyzers.

STM32C++CAN / IsoSPI3rd Overall FSAE 2025
Jan 2025 — Present

Co-Founder // Tabl AI — Generative CAD Software

Co-founded Tabl AI (SX S25 Cohort), leading UI/UX design and AI-powered feature-tree generation for intuitive parametric CAD editing. Building DFM and supply-chain engineering agents using retrieval-augmented generation for context-aware, parametric CAD interactions.

Generative AIRAGCADProduct Design

03 Projects

Computer Vision · HPC

FSAE Driverless Cone Detection

C++ perception pipeline using DBSCAN point-cloud clustering on the FSOCO dataset, with pixel filtering parallelized across OpenMP and custom CUDA kernels for up to 1.43x throughput speedup. HSV/RGB kernels classify blue/yellow cones across lighting conditions.

Parallel Computing · HPC

MPI Gray-Scott Reaction-Diffusion Sim

MPI C++ simulation with row decomposition and non-blocking halo exchange to overlap ghost-row communication with compute — 6.88x speedup (86% efficiency) on 8 processes, modeling Turing patterns (coral, mitosis, maze) across an 8000-step grid.

Soft Robotics

Dielectric Elastomer Swimmer Actuators

Led a 6-person Vertically Integrated Project team fabricating dielectric-elastomer and electromagnetic actuators for soft robotic swimmers, including a compact variable high-voltage supply built around a Cockcroft-Walton multiplier for stable actuation.

Human-Machine Interface

NASA LTV EdgeKey Dashboard

Redesigned the physical interface and controls for NASA's Lunar Terrain Vehicle EdgeKey dashboard for high-brightness display environments, and supported SEV avionics refurbishment — updating schematics, labeling connections, and sourcing parts.

04 Skills

Languages & Parallel Computing

C++ Python C CUDA OpenMP MPI MATLAB / Simulink

Protocols & Buses

CAN IsoSPI / SPI UDS / UDE OBD-II Ethernet I2C JTAG / SWD

Embedded & Build Tooling

STM32 Firmware FreeRTOS Bazel SCons CMake Git PlatformIO Docker

Perception, PCB & Lab

YOLO / Object Detection OpenCV DBSCAN Clustering Altium PCB Design Oscilloscope / Logic Analyzer Signal Integrity

05 Awards & Recognition