Andrey Dovnar

Hello 👋. My name is Andrey Dovnar, and I'm an engineer from Minsk, Belarus, but I currently live and work in Warsaw, Poland.

I'm 25 years old.

I speak Russian natively and my English level is C1.

I have a bachelor's degree in control systems design and currently a Ph.D. student in robotics.

I love learning new things and enjoy doing projects in a way, that they won't need attention afterwards. I'd rather change a concept multiple times in the beginning, then would drown in the unmaintainable project in the future.

My passion is robotics and space🪐, but I generally enjoy developing interesting engineering projects.

I spend a lot of time working and learning, but when I have a moment I enjoy playing and hosting D&D🎲.

What I can do

I'm mostly self-taught, through my university degree was also quite useful as well. I started seriously learning engineering disciplines when I was around 19. Since then, I developed a couple of different projects. At first to learn things and then as orders. You can find a short description of the most interesting (in my opinion) projects here. Throughout my work, I developed a wide array of skills:

Embedded programming

I worked a lot with STM32 microcontrollers. I write mostly bare-metal firmware using the C programming language and CMSIS, but can also use HAL when appropriate. For the most part, I use STM32 CubeIDE, but recently looked into working with Cube projects in VSCode.

I've worked with G4, G0, F7, F4, F3, F2 and F1 families and have development PCBs for most of them.

And have experience with developing platform independent libraries for programmable sensors.

IOT

I've made a couple of IOT projects on ESP32 using C++, PlatformIO and VS Code. For the most part, projects used Wi-Fi to control hardware in different ways.

I also have experience with Particle IOT platform and their Boron boards.

Electronics design

I've developed most of the electronics for my projects myself, using Fusion 360 electronics (previously Autodesk Eagle) and Autodesk Eagle itself.

I've been mostly designing boards for robot control, and therefore have experience with MCUs, low voltage power modules, battery management systems, digital interfaces, low voltage motor controllers and so forth.

Furthermore, I've been teaching students to use Fusion 360 electronics as first PCB CAD for more than 3 years.

3D-modeling

I have experience in 3D modeling using Fusion 360. I've been designing parts for my projects and some prototypes as a part of my job. I'm familiar with:

3D printing;
laser cutting;
sheet metal bending.

Control systems design

I know how to use Matlab and Simulink, how to calculate a mathematical model from physical equations, how to design regulators, and how to implement those regulators in real hardware.

I've designed simple real-world control systems for motor control and mobile robot control.

Robotics

I have experience using ROS2 both in simulation and on the real robots, including tools like:

Gazebo;
Rviz;
launch files;
ROS2_control;
NAV2.

General skills

I also know:

git;
Linux;
basics of Python;

Also, I have Jetson nano and Raspberry pi computers and did a bit of tinkering with them.

Project management

While studying in the university and working for it, I've been trying to assemble teams to work together on interesting projects. I could not say that the first couple of ears were successful. I didn't know how to properly work with people and manage hard projects, but I would say that I learned it, the hard way.

I have experience with quite a lot of different organizational tools, but ended up using:

ClickUp - planning;
Clockify - time tracking;
GitHub - software version control;
Google-docs - projects documentation;
Pumble - team chat.

My previous expirience

During my university years (4 years of study and 3 years of work as an engineer), I've been developing a lot of small and medium projects. At first those projects for myself, but after some time I got a couple of small orders from university and developed multiple paid projects:

Siemens PLC teaching stands. The project included mechanical design and electrical connections planning and assembly for a given Siemens hardware;
Bidirectional balancing robot. There is more information about this project on the projects page;
STM32G4 teaching stands. There is more information about this project on the projects page;
a couple of smaller projects like scissors lift with STM32 based control system, a bunch of different mobile robots, including robots with differential drive, different kinds of balancing robots and Elon wheeled robots, multiple different development boards for different families of STM32 MCUs, BMS boards, differential drive robot control boards

While being a student, I worked in a couple of different places. The most noticeable work was in the ANEM. I was hired as an embedded software engineer, but turned out to also be a project manager and mechanical engineer for the development of a very specific milling machine for big wind generators. At first, we were working on a milling robot that can be placed on the part, but after a couple of thought iterations ended up on a custom milling machine with ability to incorporate multiple spindle modules for a better throughput. During the project I've been involved in the mechanical design, electrical design, embedded programming for the STM32 and team management. The project was a failure, but It was a great learning experience for a second-third year student like me.

During my time as an engineer at the university, I also started working as a freelancer. My team and I worked for a German startup - Dathera on a Goodn8 project. We worked for about 9 months, first developing new electronics and then firmware for both new and old electronics. I also finished a couple of way smaller freelance jobs related to embedded firmware and software development.

After 3 years in the university, I got into Softarex, where I'm currently working as a "robotics engineer". My main responsibilities are split between mechanical and ROS software development, with little tasks in embedded and electrical design.

As a part of my Ph.D. research, in my free time I develop simple mobile robots and software for them, as well as working on other small projects just to learn new things or get distracted from the main work.

My vision

Currently, my goal is to become a better engineer. Because of that, I enrolled in a Ph.D. and work a lot on side projects related to robotics.

Not that long ago, I moved to Warsaw, Poland. Currently, I don't mind moving somewhere else, as I haven't yet decided where I would like to settle down.

In a long run, I would really like to open a company that would develop robotic and control systems.