01
Motor Drives & Power Electronics
Wound-rotor synchronous machine testing, drive-side instrumentation, and experimental validation against models at Columbia's MPLab.
Electrical Engineering/ Robotics & AI/ Controls/ Power Electronics
Shivam Gaind
M.S. Electrical Engineering at Columbia Engineering and graduate researcher in the Motor Drives & Power Electronics Laboratory. I build intelligent systems where the control loop, the power stage, and the hardware all have to work — machine testing and drives, vision and edge AI, optimization, and embedded electromechanical design.
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01 — Focus
Six domains, one habit: close the loop on real hardware.
My work sits where power, control, and computation meet. Each of these areas is backed by research, an internship, or a shipped system further down this page — not a course list.
02
Controls
Proportional control tuned on hardware, sensor placement studies, and closed-loop behaviour verified against measured response rather than simulation alone.
03
Robotics & Vision
Machine-vision sorting cells, IR-guided mobile robots, a field-deployed imaging trap running YOLOv8 on edge hardware, and computer vision that reads part geometry straight off engineering drawings.
04
Optimization
Adjoint-based electromagnetic optimization and SIMP topology optimization across coupled EM, thermal, and mechanical objectives.
05
Embedded Systems
ESP32-driven lighting, microcontroller robotics, timed edge-compute enclosures, and the wiring and power that keep them alive outdoors.
06
Advanced Engineering & Manufacturing
Robotic dispensing, an AI shop-floor assistant and AR-assisted assembly at Northrop Grumman, satellite thermal design at Fermilab, and connector design at Wabtec.
02 — Selected work
Four projects worth reading in full.
Current research, a published application, a field-deployed AI instrument, and a multiphysics optimization study. Each one opens into a full case study.
01 / Current research
Motor Drives & Power Electronics Laboratory · Columbia University
Wound-Rotor Synchronous Machine Testing
Graduate research on electric machines and drives: instrumenting a wound-rotor synchronous machine, running it through defined operating points, and validating measured behaviour against MATLAB/Simulink models. The work sits across the power stage, the sensing chain, and the control side at once.
RoleGraduate Researcher
PeriodFall 2026 — Present
FocusMachines · drives · experimental validation
ToolingMATLAB / Simulink · DAQ
CurrentElectric machinesMotor drives
Power electronicsControlsData acquisition
02 / Shipped product
iOS · iPadOS · macOS · Web
PlateOptimize
A design tool for optimized metal base plates, published on the App Store and mirrored as a web app. You give it plate dimensions, bolt layout, column geometry and loading conditions; it returns CAD-ready geometry and exports DXF, SVG and PNG straight into a manufacturing workflow.
RoleSole developer & publisher
ReleasedMarch 2026
CategoryProductivity · Age rating 4+
ExportsDXF · SVG · PNG
Live on App StoreOptimizationCAD export
StreamlitDesign automation
03 / Capstone instrument
Capstone · Computer vision · Edge AI
AI-Based Insect Detection System
A Malaise-trap-inspired instrument that photographs insects instead of killing them. Mesh wings funnel flying insects into a photo chamber lit by ESP32-controlled LED panels; two YOLOv8 models running on an NVIDIA Jetson Nano classify what walks in by 4 orders and 10 families at close to 95% accuracy, and Grad-CAM heat maps confirm they are looking at the insect and not the background.
RoleCapstone team
PeriodJan — May 2026
PipelineTrap → chamber → imaging → YOLOv8 ×2
Result4 orders · 10 families · ~95%
Publication in progressYOLOv8Jetson Nano
ESP32Grad-CAMComputer vision
04 / Research
Research Assistant · Penn State Computational Electromagnetics and Antennas Research Laboratory
Multiphysics & Topology Optimization
A study of how adjoint-sensitivity electromagnetic optimization and SIMP topology optimization combine into a single multiphysics loop — designing GRIN lenses and meta-radomes that have to raise antenna gain and survive mechanical load at the same time.
RoleResearch Assistant
PeriodJan — May 2026
MethodsAdjoint sensitivity · SIMP · FEA
StackCOMSOL · MATLAB · AWS
Topology optimizationElectromagneticsGRIN lenses
Meta-radomesThermalAWS
03 — Industry & national labs
Where the work was done for someone else's schedule.
Defense manufacturing, a Department of Energy national laboratory, rail traction systems, and an applied research laboratory. Every entry links to the original documentation.
May — Jul 2025 & 2026
Manufacturing Engineering Intern
Northrop Grumman
- Designed, built and tested a robotic dispensing system — robotic arm, pneumatic pressure regulation and solenoid-controlled actuation in one automated assembly — cutting the caulking process from 40 minutes to 7.
- Built a Machine Shop AI Assistant: computer vision extracts part geometry from drawings and auto-generates routings across the shop's CNC mills, lathes, press brake, turret punch press and band saws, flags drawings whose tolerances exceed machine capability, and answers troubleshooting questions through a RAG chatbot trained on equipment manuals.
- Evaluated AR headset hardware — HoloLens 2, Apple Vision Pro, Meta Quest — for manufacturing workflows, and helped implement hands-free digital work instructions.
- Also designed an 80 lb radio antenna stand with 45° rotation in both directions, and a tool-tracking database covering checkout, return and sharpening status.
Jun 2021 — Jun 2022
U.S. Department of Energy · Fermilab
Satellite Readout-Board Cooling System
- Designed a thermal path carrying roughly 10 W away from the three CCD read-out boards of a dark-matter X-ray detection satellite.
- Worked the problem for vacuum: with no air, conduction and radiation to the radiator are the only mechanisms available.
- Presented the design to mentors on the detector team as a 13-page technical report.
May — Aug 2024
Wabtec / GE Transportation
Connector Design & Shop-Floor Tooling
- Selected as 1 of 200 interns from a pool of 6,000+ applicants; carried a connector design through the full trade-study, design, test and validation lifecycle, ending in a cost-effective part implemented factory-wide.
- Developed a wire-harnessing method replacing traditional formboards with stencils.
- Designed and 3D-printed custom connector blocks that hold varied connector sizes during wire insertion — safer for hands, and cheap enough in PLA that they stopped disappearing.
- Built a 4× scale crimped-terminal board used at career fairs and STEM events to demonstrate wiring procedures.
Aug 2023 — May 2024
Penn State Applied Research Laboratory
Defect Detection in Metal Additive Manufacturing
- Developed algorithms to identify the quantity and size of defects arising in metal-based additive manufacturing, supporting part quality verification.
- Applied random sampling and statistical techniques to analyse defect distributions and establish a new probability model.
- Surveyed the non-destructive inspection methods behind it — ultrasonic testing, pulsed thermography — in a 52-page review that became the reference for the sampling approach.
04 — Trace
Five years, plotted on one axis.
Education, industry and research run as three tracks against the same time base — from a national laboratory in 2021 to a Columbia power-electronics lab now.
05 — Project index
Everything else, still worth your time.
Robotics, controls, energy systems and software builds. Filter by discipline; documentation opens inline.
01
Puzzle Sorting Robot
Dobot Vision Studio and C# workflow that classifies puzzle pieces by edge status and colour, then sorts them into organised stacks.
02
Infrared Wall-Following Robot
Proportional controller on a RedBot holding constant distance from a wall. Gain tuned by hand to Kp = 0.3 — sluggish below it, unstable above — with the IR sensor angled to see both the wall alongside and the turn ahead.
03
Hybrid PV–Wind & Water Pumping System — Barranquilla, Colombia
Off-grid energy and water system for the Second Beach of Puerto Mocho, designed with students from Universidad del Norte and simulated in HOMER Pro. Selected as a 100K Strong in the Americas grant recipient with $3,000 in funding; 47-page report with full energy, economic and environmental analysis.
04
AI Chatbot for Medical Clinics
React and Node.js intake tool built on the OpenAI API that asks guided symptom follow-up questions and organises patient responses for doctors.
05
Mechanical Automata Exhibit — Children's Museum
An interactive automaton built as a museum exhibit to teach motion and linkages, designed to survive being operated by children all day.
06
Satellite Cooling System — Fermilab
Thermal path from the CCD read-out boards of a dark-matter detection satellite to its radiator, designed for a vacuum environment where convection is unavailable.
07
Formboard Wiring & Connector Tooling — Wabtec
Stencil-based replacement for traditional formboards, plus printed connector blocks and a 4× scale terminal-board training model.
08
Defect-Detection Research — Penn State ARL
Algorithms to identify the quantity and size of defects in metal additive manufacturing, with random sampling and statistical techniques used to establish a new probability model. Backed by a 52-page review of NDE methods.
09
Engineering Mentor — Student Design Team
Guided a student team in St. Charles, Illinois through design reviews for gutter downspout repair solutions, from concept through presentation.
06 — Contact
Open to robotics, power electronics, controls and intelligent-systems work.
Graduate researcher at Columbia, based in New York. Happy to talk about drives, embedded control, vision systems, or anything that has to survive contact with real hardware.
Full résumé — education, experience, projects and skills.
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