Binh Nguyen

Binh Nguyen

ABOUT
EXPERIENCE
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About

Binh Nguyen is a Robotics Scientist and Tech Lead with over ten years of experience across aerospace, defence, and commercial robotics, building safety-critical autonomous platforms from concept through deployment. His end-to-end technical leadership spans perception, planning, control, and digital-twin infrastructure, with a track record of leading multidisciplinary teams to deliver resilient autonomous systems.

He currently leads system development for a decentralised drone swarm framework for Defence applications at UNSW Canberra, owning outcomes end-to-end from architecture through integration and field deployment.

:mortar_board: Education

Doctor of Philosophy | Robotics & AI
Federation University Australia, Churchill, Victoria, Australia
May 2022 – Oct 2025
Thesis recommended for a Dean’s Excellence Award by an independent external examiner. [Examiner Report]

Bachelor of Engineering (Honours) | Electronics & Communication Engineering
Hanoi University of Science and Technology (HUST), Hanoi, Vietnam
2012 – 2017
#1 in Vietnam during 2012–2018 by Scimago Institutions Rankings.

:briefcase: Experience

Research Associate | Technical Lead @ UNSW Canberra

Canberra, ACT, Australia (Full-time | On-site)
July 2025 - Present

  • Leading systems development for a decentralised drone swarm framework for Defence applications, with end-to-end responsibility from architecture through integration, testing, deployment, and handover to industry stakeholders.
    • Architected a modular, scalable software stack using ROS2, enabling reusable integration across navigation, perception, communication, and task allocation subsystems with CI/CD pipelines from simulation to real hardware.
    • Built and maintained a full-stack simulation infrastructure (digital twin) based on ROS2 and NVIDIA Isaac Sim for development, integration testing, and validation, analogous to a flatsat environment.
    • Leading cross-discipline integration across embedded software, hardware, sensor payloads, localisation systems, and communication links, ensuring end-to-end validation through ground and flight testing.
    • Designed swarm testing scenarios, operational safety protocols, and human-swarm interaction interfaces; mentoring Defence undergraduate students on swarm simulation research.
  • Key Achievements:

Research Associate | Technical Lead @ Federation University Australia

Churchill, Victoria, Australia (Part-time | On-site)
June 2024 - June 2025

  • Led end-to-end architecture for a multi-sensor tracking system to protect koalas during forestry operations in Victoria, owning system design and cross-discipline integration across mechanical, electrical, and software teams, from specification through field qualification.
    • Specified, procured, and integrated the complete sensor-actuator chain: thermal cameras, laser range finders, gimbal systems, embedded controllers, and GNSS modules, validated through lab and field testing.
    • Developed telemetry and command interfaces for real-time thermal video streaming and target data exchange between onboard systems and the ground control station.
    • Developed gimbal control algorithms, AI-powered object detection, and target localisation through sensor fusion (laser + GNSS).
  • Achievement: Delivered a complete integrated tracking system with autonomous target following and real-time telemetry, successfully qualified through field testing at an operational plantation.

Embedded Software Engineer @ Swoop Aero

Melbourne, Australia (Full-time | Hybrid)
Nov 2022 - June 2023

  • Developing mission-critical flight software for production aerial drone platforms (1.6M+ items delivered, 6.0M+ people served globally) on RTOS/Embedded Linux. Conducting R&D for smart flight features with rapid iterative development cycles.
  • Achievement: Delivered flight software for vision-based autonomous takeoff and landing on moving platforms (e.g., ship decks), integrating real-time sensor processing, state estimation, and autonomous decision-making under dynamic conditions.

PhD Candidate | Robotics & AI @ Federation University Australia

Churchill, Victoria, Australia (Full-time | On-site)
May 2022 - June 2025

  • Research Focus: Developed novel real-time GNC algorithms for autonomous aerial navigation under sensor uncertainty, validated through extensive simulation-based testing with iterative design-build-test-refine cycles. Research Portfolio: thethaibinh.github.io/publications
  • Achievements:
    • Published research in IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (ranked #1 in Robotics by Google Scholar).
    • Established the Intelligent Drone Laboratory, the first and only indoor flight facility at Federation University, from concept to fully operational research infrastructure.

Autopilot Lead Engineer @ Realtime Robotics

Vietnam (Full-time | Hybrid)
Jan 2022 - August 2022

  • Led a multidisciplinary team (software, hardware, operations) to deliver an AI-powered vision-based navigation and object localisation system for UAVs from concept through integration and deployment, for agricultural applications and search-and-rescue operations.

Autopilot Software Developer | Flight Simulation Lead @ Viettel Aerospace Institute & Viettel High Tech

Hanoi, Vietnam (Full-time | On-site)
August 2017 - January 2022

  • Responsibilities:
    • Developed real-time flight software in C/C++ for multiple vehicle configurations across product generations, including GNC algorithms (guidance, navigation, control), motor control, and EKF-based state estimation (AHRS and GNSS/INS navigation).
    • Implemented telemetry, command, and data handling systems including real-time data logging, ground control station communication, and remote software configuration.
    • Led development of FDIR (Fault Detection, Isolation and Response) logic for autonomous recovery from vehicle anomalies including GNSS jamming/outage, communication loss, and sensor failures.
    • Owned the SIL/HIL simulation infrastructure for flight software development and testing across all vehicle configurations, using X-Plane with realistic visualisation.
    • Created all vehicle digital-twin models used for real-time testing and to inform iterative airframe and system design.
  • Achievements:
    • Delivered a complete production flight software stack with advanced autonomy features, including VTOL-to-Fixed-wing transition control and autonomous FDIR for critical scenarios such as GNSS jamming, sensor failure, and communication loss.
    • Delivered digital-twin models and flight software for all vehicle configurations across five years (2017–2022), including pan-tilt gimbal/tracker, Quadrotor, VTOL QuadPlane, Fixed-wing, Folded-wing, and Launcher/Jet-assisted take-off vehicles across all product versions.
    • Built a complete SIL/HIL simulation infrastructure from scratch, establishing the development and testing environment for all flight software across the organisation.

Research Assistant | UAV Team Lead @ ASE Laboratory, HUST

Hanoi, Vietnam (Part-time | Hybrid)
May 2014 - January 2022

  • Responsibilities:
    • Led research on stability and GNC algorithms for various aerial vehicle configurations.
    • Designed embedded systems; full-stack software and electronics development for IoT-SCADA applications.
    • Mentored junior researchers on aerial systems, embedded development, and scientific writing.
  • Achievements:

:wrench: Engineering Skills

  • Simulation & Virtual Validation: SIL/HIL testing infrastructure design and deployment; digital-twin development (X-Plane, NVIDIA Isaac Sim, Unity, Gazebo, MATLAB/Simulink); CI/CD validation pipelines; test automation; systematic failure mode analysis
  • Autonomous System Architecture: Full-stack understanding of perception, planning, control, and vehicle integration; system-level validation across subsystem interactions; design for testability
  • Software & Middleware: ROS/ROS2 (modular architecture, multi-subsystem integration), PX4, Ardupilot; Python/C/C++ on RTOS and Embedded Linux; real-time deterministic systems
  • Autonomy & Control: Guidance, navigation and control algorithms; EKF-based state estimation (AHRS, INS/GNSS); trajectory planning; FDIR; VTOL transition control; motor/gimbal control
  • Sensing & Perception: Depth cameras (Intel RealSense, OAK-D), thermal cameras, LiDAR, laser range finders, RTK-GNSS; OpenCV, YOLO, FFmpeg, GStreamer
  • Communication & Telemetry: Telemetry and command interfaces, data logging, ground control station integration; MAVLink, CAN, SPI, I2C, UART

:trophy: Professional Certifications

  • Remote Pilot Licence (RePL) & Aeronautical Radio Operator Certificate (AROC), issued by Civil Aviation Safety Authority (2025).

:books: Selected Publications

All journal articles are Q1 and all first-authored without other student co-authors. See Google Scholar · ORCID · IEEE for the full list.

  1. Binh Nguyen, et al., “Non-Conservative Efficient Collision Checking and Depth Noise-Awareness for Trajectory Planning,” IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, vol. 10, no. 8, pp. 7859–7866, Aug. 2025. (Ranked #1 in Robotics by Google Scholar Metrics; invited to present at ICRA 2026).

  2. Binh Nguyen, et al., “Online State-to-State Time-Optimal Trajectory Planning for Quadrotors in Unknown Cluttered Environments,” Proc. 2024 Int. Conf. Unmanned Aircraft Systems (ICUAS), pp. 309–316, 2024.

  3. Binh Nguyen, et al., “Depth-based Sampling and Steering Constraints for Memoryless Local Planners,” Journal of Intelligent & Robotic Systems, vol. 109, no. 11, p. 46, 2023. (Ranked #18 in Robotics by Google Scholar Metrics).

  • ROS2 Swarming Digital Twin: Full-stack simulation and digital twin system with CI/CD validation pipelines onto real hardware
  • Fly-by-Voice: VLM-powered autonomous navigation with natural language command interfaces and deterministic safety guarantees
  • Brover: Autonomous ground robot with multimodal sensing (RGB-D, thermal) and AI-powered interface (NVIDIA Academic Grant ~$25K AUD)
  • Autonomous Target Tracking: Detection and tracking of moving ground targets, validated through simulation-to-deployment pipelines
  • Precision Landing on Moving Platforms: Vision-based autonomous landing system

:moneybag: Grants

  • NVIDIA Academic Grant (2026) - Unrestricted gift to UNSW in support of the Brover project: 32K A100 GPU-Hours on Brev and 2× Jetson AGX Orin Dev Kits