About
Yusuf Guenena
Robotics engineer. I build autonomous robots that operate around people, make them run efficiently on real compute, and instrument them so their failures can be understood and contained.
Background
I started in electrical engineering, which is where I learned that a system is only as good as its behavior when a component degrades. That instinct moved with me into robotics and an M.S. in Robotics Engineering at Wayne State University.
Most of my work runs on a Unitree GO2 with a Jetson Orin NX on its back, which remains the fastest way I know to find out which simulation results were real. Come Here is the clearest example: a spoken command, an onboard pipeline, and a robot that walks to the caller and sits. My thesis research is on MOSAIC, which turns spoken requests into sequences of robot skills under an independent safety guardian, and on guiding a low-vision handler to a destination.
Now
- Study
- M.S. Robotics Engineering, Wayne State University, expected May 2027.
- Thesis
- Safe Assistive Quadruped Autonomy. Research focus: MOSAIC, a language-model layer that turns spoken requests into sequences of robot skills under an independent safety guardian, and guiding a low-vision handler to a destination under a safety envelope that alone commands motion. Private until the defense.
- Hardware
- A physical Unitree GO2 with a Jetson Orin NX companion, which is where the claims on this site get tested or fail to be.
- Open to
- Full-time robotics software and autonomy roles.
Experience
- Jan 2026 - present
- Graduate Researcher, CARES Lab, Wayne State University. Human-robot interaction and assistive robotics on a Unitree GO2. M.S. thesis research on dependable assistive autonomy for a quadruped guide robot: MOSAIC, a language-model layer that turns spoken requests into sequences of robot skills while an independent safety guardian holds motion authority, and a guiding system that leads a low-vision handler to a destination under a safety envelope that alone commands motion. Built Come Here: say “come here” and the GO2 turns to the voice, confirms the caller on camera, walks up and sits about 0.8 m away, all onboard, succeeding in four live end-to-end trials on the physical robot. Leading a lab-wide critical review of robotic guide-dog systems for blind and low-vision travelers (23 systems charted, 21-page circulation draft).
- Jun - Jul 2026
- Manufacturing & Electrical Engineering Intern, Spike Electric Controls, Houston. Verified fabricated low- and medium-voltage switchgear against approved drawings, traced control, indication and trip circuits from schematic to terminal, and assisted with factory acceptance testing.
- Jan - May 2025
- Automation Intern, City Solar, Dubai. Automated the weekly engineering reporting pipeline and built a web data-entry tool that wrote field technicians' records straight into the reporting database.
- Aug - Oct 2022
- Systems Engineering Intern, 3W Networks, Dubai. Electrical load calculations for industrial oil-and-gas infrastructure; reviewed factory-acceptance-test drawings.
- Jun - Aug 2021
- Electrical Engineering Intern, ICONIC Plus Control Systems, Dubai. Led a KNX building-automation project and built a real-time operator interface for live monitoring.
Tools
What I actually use, rather than everything I have touched.
- Robotics
- ROS 2, Nav2, ros2_control, tf2, SLAM Toolbox, Isaac Lab, Isaac Sim, Gazebo
- Systems
- C++20 and C++17, C, CUDA, TensorRT, CMake, Linux, Docker, sanitizers (ASan, UBSan, TSan)
- Learning
- PyTorch, reinforcement learning (PPO), sim-to-real, ONNX export with parity gates, OOD detection
- Perception
- YOLO, pose estimation, person re-identification, Whisper, OpenCV
- Hardware
- Unitree GO2, Jetson Orin NX, Arm Cortex-M4F (bare metal), ESP32-S3, Arduino
Contact
- GitHub
- github.com/yusufdxb
- linkedin.com/in/yusuf-guenena