Daniel Lawrence Lu

===

pic lidar3.png Lidar point cloud : I work on algorithms for [SLAM](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simultaneous_localization_and_mapping), calibration, and surface reconstruction.

I am an engineer, roboticist, programmer, and photographer.

* **2023--present**: [Main Street Autonomy](https://mainstreetautonomy.com) Startup software engineer
* **2021--2023**: [Tesla](https://tesla.com/) Senior software engineer, Autopilot
* **2020--2021**: [Tempus Ex Machina](https://tempus-ex.com/) Staff software engineer, computer vision
* **2016--2020**: [Ouster](https://ouster.io/) Software engineer, mapping

I am interested in robot perception and localization, computer vision, and machine learning.

In my spare time, I like to [contribute to Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Dllu), [make 3D models](design/), work on [personal programming projects](programming/), do programming contests, [take photos](photos/), and do web design.

:: resume.pdf resume.pdf

On this website all views are my own only and do not reflect those of my employer.

# Education

* **2014--2016**: [Carnegie Mellon University, M.S. Robotics](https://www.ri.cmu.edu/ri_static_content.html?menu_id=469)
* **2008--2014**: [University of British Columbia, B.A.Sc. Eng. Phys.](https://www.engphys.ubc.ca/)

At CMU, my advisor was [George Kantor](https://www.ri.cmu.edu/person.html?person_id=717).
I worked on [SLAM](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simultaneous_localization_and_mapping) using a combination of cameras and a lidar, for an autonomous off-road vehicle.

My thesis is called [Vision-Enhanced Lidar Odometry and Mapping](/public/thesis.pdf). It is about combining several different SLAM algorithms, each with different strengths and weaknesses, so that a robot can function robustly in many different environments.

# Contact

My email address is the same as my full name except with an '@' in between my first and middle names and a dot between my middle and last name.

:: email mailto:daniel@lawrence.lu

# Publications

## Journal papers

* **Daniel Lu**. (2015) Planar lower envelope of monotone polygonal chains. _Information Processing Letters_, 115(12), 962-964. [doi:10.1016/j.ipl.2015.07.004](https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ipl.2015.07.004), [arXiv:1412.6619](https://arxiv.org/abs/1412.6619)

## Preprints

* **Daniel Lu**. (2015) Generalization of elementary cellular automata to a higher dimension family including the BML traffic model. [arXiv:1501.00733](https://arxiv.org/abs/1501.00733)
* Paul Liu and **Daniel Lu**. (2014) A fast 25/6-approximation for the minimum unit disk cover problem. [arXiv:1406.3838](https://arxiv.org/abs/1406.3838)

## Technical reports

* **Daniel Lu**. (2016) Vision-Enhanced Lidar Odometry and Mapping. _Masters Thesis_. [pdf link](/public/thesis.pdf)
* **Daniel Lu**. (2015) Offline estimation of vehicular inertial parameters using onboard lidar. [webpage](/programming/inertial), [pdf link](https://lawrence.lu/public/report_16-711.pdf)
* **Daniel Lu**, Anson Liang, Richard Lee. (2012) Quaffle: Design of an Autonomous Quadrotor. [webpage](/engineering/quaffle/), [pdf link](https://lawrence.lu/public/quaffle.pdf)