Robotics Software Engineer · Hanoi, Vietnam

Phạm Đức Duy.

Closing the gap between
autonomous navigation research and deployed hardware.

Two years shipping ROS 2 mobile robots into production — hospitals, restaurants, factory floors. Currently Source Engineer at VinRobotics and Lab Leader at HalBotLab, researching Embodied AI and Nav2 systems. Published in MethodsX (Q2) on distributional RL for path planning under sensor noise.

2+
Years shipping
production robots
30+
B2B operators
onboarded
Q2
MethodsX
publication
5
Research &
olympiad awards
BELLMAN VALUE ITERATION (MDP)
Goals: 0
👉 CLICK & DRAG TO DRAW OBSTACLES
Interactive reinforcement learning map. Use pointing device or touch to draw walls.

What I actually do.

Most robotics demos work in ideal conditions. My job is to make them work when they don't — when the LiDAR scan is partial, the floor is reflective, the network drops packets, and the operator expects the robot to keep moving. I tune DDS QoS profiles and ROS 2 executor strategies for real-time performance, configure Cartographer SLAM for constrained hardware, and debug Nav2 failure modes that never appear in simulation.

At ByteHome Robotics, I led the full cycle from prototype to commercialized product — hardware integration, software stack, and the rarely-mentioned last mile: writing operator runbooks, training 30+ non-technical B2B clients to maintain and operate ROS 2 robots without engineering support on-site.

At HalBotLab I'm focused on the harder problem — moving beyond scripted navigation toward robots that understand unstructured 3D environments. We work with depth images, point cloud pipelines, and Micro-ROS on ESP32 running RTOS for low-latency sensor communication.

ROS 2Nav2 Cartographer SLAMMicro-ROS RTOSC++ PythonRust Embodied AIReinforcement Learning MuJoCoPoint CloudDepth Images

Core Stack

Robotics
ROS & ROS 2Nav2 CartographerMicro-ROS GazeboMuJoCo
AI / Perception
Embodied AIReinforcement Learning Imitation LearningPoint Cloud
Systems
C++Python RustGoLang LinuxDocker
Hardware
Visionary-TIntel D435 ESP32Raspberry Pi

Where I've built things.

Mar 2026 — Present
Active
VinRobotics
Robotics Software Engineer · VinRobotics Talent Program
  • Designed and implemented a robot license management system — cryptographic activation, feature gating, and telemetry reporting — for fleet deployments at scale.
  • Deployed ROS 2 integration modules on factory floor automation that reduced manual QC inspection steps in the assembly line workflow.
Oct 2025 — Mar 2026
ByteHome Robotics
Robotics Software Engineer · Tech Lead
  • Led a 5-engineer team building differential-drive service robots for hospitality and healthcare — full ROS 2 stack: sensor drivers, Cartographer SLAM, Nav2 planners/controllers, multilingual voice interaction.
  • Took the product from internal prototype to commercial deployment, including hardware integration, safety testing, and regulatory documentation.
  • Wrote operator handbooks and trained 30+ B2B clients for independent fleet operation without ongoing engineering support.
Jun 2024 — Present
Active
HalBotLab ↗ haibot-lab
Lab Leader · Hanoi Intelligence Robot Laboratory
  • Direct lab research on Embodied AI: representation learning from egocentric observations, manipulation policy training in MuJoCo, sim-to-real transfer of perception modules.
  • Built point cloud and depth image processing pipelines (Intel D435, Visionary-T) for 3D object detection in unstructured environments.
  • Developed Micro-ROS firmware on ESP32 with FreeRTOS — sub-5ms sensor publish latency enabling tight control loops between embedded hardware and the ROS 2 compute graph.
Expected 2026
Hanoi University of Industry
B.Eng. · Robotics and Artificial Intelligence
  • 2nd Prize, University Scientific Research 2026 — Satellite image map recognition via image processing and deep learning.
  • 2nd Prize, University Informatics Olympiad 2025.
  • 3rd Prize, University Scientific Research 2025 — Object detection from depth sensor data. Consolation Prize 2024 — Pick-and-place trajectory optimization on a TOSHIBA DC650B die-casting cell.
  • 3rd Prize, University Student Mathematics Competition 2023 (Linear Algebra).

Projects I've shipped.

Imitation Learning · Thesis Work
HG-Dagger Obstacle Avoidance
Local obstacle avoidance policy trained via Human-Gated DAgger. The learned policy replaces the DWA local planner — a single forward pass on LiDAR scan input yields 131× fewer FLOPs per control cycle versus DWA's iterative trajectory sampling. Deployed on Micro-ROS / ESP32.
Micro-ROSFreeRTOS ROS 2C++
Outdoor Mobile Robotics · University Research
Skid-Steer Field Robot
60 kg payload outdoor platform with skid-steer kinematics. Motor controllers communicate via RS-485 Modbus on a Micro-ROS ESP32 bridge, decoupling real-time motor control from main compute. Supports RC teleoperation and autonomous ROS 2 navigation.
Micro-ROSFreeRTOS RS-485ROS 2
Reinforcement Learning · Published Research
Path Planning via Distributional RL
The research behind the MethodsX Q2 publication. Trained a QR-DQN distributional critic for mobile robot navigation in multi-structured environments where standard expected-value RL breaks down under noisy depth sensor input.
PythonPyTorch ROSGazebo
Reinforcement Learning · Foundations
Atari Agent — Double DQN
Implemented Double DQN from scratch to understand the overestimation bias in standard DQN and how decoupling action selection from value estimation corrects it — foundational work that informed the distributional RL research above.
PythonPyTorchGymnasium

Published work & recognition.

2026
2nd Prize · University Scientific Research
Satellite Image Map Recognition Based on Image Processing and Deep Learning
Recognition pipeline for satellite map imagery using classical image processing for region segmentation combined with a CNN-based classification backbone.
2025
Q2 Journal MethodsX · Dec 2025 · vol. 15, 103554
Path Planning for Mobile Robots in Multi-Structured Environments via Distributional Reinforcement Learning
Standard RL path planners optimize for expected reward, which makes them brittle when sensor noise is heavy-tailed. This paper replaces the expected-value critic with a distributional critic (C51-style return distribution), allowing risk-aware navigation across structured, semi-structured, and cluttered map variants in Gazebo.
DOI Reference
2nd Prize · Informatics Olympiad
University Informatics Olympiad 2025
Placed 2nd in the competitive programming track.
3rd Prize · University Scientific Research
Object Detection from Depth Image Data
Detection architectures trained on depth images, targeting robustness in low-light and texture-poor environments typical of indoor robot operation.
2024
Consolation Prize · Univ. Scientific Research
Motion Trajectory Design and Optimization for a Pick-and-Place Robot on the TOSHIBA DC650B Die-Casting Machine
Designed and optimized end-effector trajectories for an industrial pick-and-place arm integrated into a die-casting production cell, focusing on cycle time reduction and collision-free path generation.
2023
3rd Prize · Student Mathematics Competition
University Student Mathematics Competition 2023 — Linear Algebra
Placed 3rd in the Linear Algebra category of the university-wide student mathematics competition.

Certifications.

Coursera · DeepLearning.AI
Deep Learning Specialization (4/5 courses)
In progress
Udemy
3D Point Cloud Masterclass — LiDAR & CloudCompare
View certificate
Udemy
Master Git and GitHub from A to Z
View certificate
Udemy
Introduction to Amazon Web Services
View certificate

Let's work on something real.

Looking for roles where the robots actually ship — not just simulate. Particularly interested in teams working on autonomous mobile robots, Embodied AI, or edge-compute robotics stacks where the distance between a ROS 2 node and a physical actuator is short.

Research collaborations welcome: sim-to-real transfer, distributional RL, or perception for navigation. If you're training operators on ROS 2 and need someone who's done it before — that too.

Send me an email ↗

Based in Hanoi, Vietnam.
Open to international roles — remote-first or relocation.