Engineering portfolio

Andres Peña

Embedded Systems, Avionics & Electromechanical Engineering.

Based in
Washington, DC area
Local time
 
Contact meGet resume

Press

In the press.

01 / 05

About

Who I am.

Portrait of Andres Peña

I'm an embedded systems engineer and Technical Lead at SWORT Aerospace, where I direct advanced avionics development, lead private aerospace engineering programs, and engage with government organizations on emerging defense and autonomous systems technologies. My work operates at the intersection of embedded intelligence, flight-critical electronics, autonomous control, and experimental aerospace research, transforming complex engineering challenges into operational hardware and next-generation capabilities. I studied at Purdue University and am based in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, where I focus on advancing avionics technology, cultivating strategic relationships across the aerospace and defense sectors, and building collaborations between industry, research, and government.

Based in
Washington, DC area
Studying at
Montgomery College
View Andres Peña on LinkedIn

Academic background

  1. 2025 – PresentElectrical EngineeringMontgomery College
  2. Prior studyEngineering studiesPurdue University

Experience

Engineering roles.

  1. 2023 – Present

    Technical Lead

    SWORT Aerospace

    • Led 8 paid engineering programs and directed a 5-person technical team across architecture, PCB design, firmware, manufacturing and acceptance testing, under customer NDAs.
    • Released 3 flight-controller products and built 100 units with 97% first-pass acceptance; cut bring-up time 40% with automated fixtures, interface diagnostics and controlled assembly procedures.
    • Delivered 1 kHz control loops with under 50 µs maximum observed scheduling jitter under stress testing, and 1,000 cumulative hardware-in-the-loop hours without an unexpected reset.
    • Reduced unit production cost 22% against the prior revision at equal batch size; reached 100% requirements-to-test traceability and closed 45 documented defects before release.
    • Flight controllers
    • Firmware
    • PCB design
    • HIL testing
    • Manufacturing
    swort.net
    Attitude telemetrySIM · 200 Hz
    +12°−12°Tap to disturb
    Roll

    +0.00 °

    Pitch

    +0.00 °

    Yaw rate

    +0.00 °/s

  2. 2025 – Present

    Electromechanical Lead

    ASME / Shell Eco-marathon

    • Owned the hydraulic brake system from CAD and simulation through fabrication and integration: 12% shorter stopping distance and 18% lower assembly mass than the previous design in matched tests.
    • Built 16-channel, 100 Hz STM32 telemetry with 99.9% valid-record capture over 50 test hours, and cut energy use per kilometer 10% through control tuning on a repeatable drive cycle.
    • STM32
    • Telemetry
    • Hydraulic brakes
    • SolidWorks
    • Control tuning
    asmepnw.com
    1/2

  3. 2025

    Avionics Engineer

    Purdue Space Program / ASTRA

    • Integrated flight firmware with a 6-DOF simulation carrying sensor noise, thrust uncertainty and actuator limits; the vehicle met the defined landing envelope in 990 of 1,000 Monte Carlo runs.
    • Reduced attitude-tracking RMS error 35% against the baseline controller; automated 120 hardware-in-the-loop cases and verified safe-state transitions within 100 ms for specified injected faults.
    • C/C++
    • GNC
    • 6-DOF simulation
    • Monte Carlo
    • HIL testing
    purdueseds.space
    1/3

For companies and partners

SWORT's program file is restricted: readiness, evidence, open gaps and the hardware. Open it with your company's access code.

I have an access code

Projects

Selected engineering work.

  • 01TRL 5

    CSIA runtime assurance

    A zero-allocation C runtime on the STM32H743 that decides which sensors to trust: under 100 µs maximum observed execution time, 95% fault-event detection and fewer than one false alert per 10 nominal hours on held-out tests. Evaluated on 1,500 logs (60 hours); C and Python agree within 1e-12.

    • C
    • Python
    • STM32H743
    • MAVLink
    • Fault injection

    Technical lead, SWORT Aerospace

    Source
  • 02Manufactured

    Eight-channel ESC systems

    Paired 4-in-1 boards with bidirectional DShot600 and per-motor telemetry: 97% electrical conversion efficiency at nominal load, and a 15 °C lower peak MOSFET temperature than the previous revision under equal cooling.

    • DShot600
    • Power electronics
    • Telemetry
    • Thermal design

    Technical lead, SWORT Aerospace

  • 03Bench validated

    Hybrid EMI filter

    An active/passive inverter filter, validated on the bench: 15 dB more common-mode attenuation from 150 kHz to 1 MHz, at 20% lower mass than a passive reference meeting the same attenuation envelope.

    • Power electronics
    • EMI
    • Bench validation
    • Python

    Researcher

  • 04Flight tested

    XR autonomous aircraft

    Flight controls, power systems and sensor assurance integrated into a composite airframe: 60 test sorties and 30 flight hours, and 50 autonomous docking cycles with 96% first-attempt docking success inside the defined operating envelope.

    • Flight controls
    • Power systems
    • Sensor assurance
    • Composites

    Technical lead, SWORT Aerospace

  • 05Research

    Graphene aerogel supercapacitor

    An ultra-fast supercapacitor built on graphene aerogel and carbon fiber, aiming for energy density close to lithium-ion batteries with faster power delivery than conventional cells. Written up on DEV.

    • Graphene aerogel
    • Carbon fiber
    • Energy storage
    • Materials

    Researcher

    Read on DEV

Skills

Tools I work with.

01 / 05
    • STM32H7
    • ESP32
    • Raspberry Pi
    • Arduino
    • C
    • C++
    • MicroPython
    • UART
    • SPI
    • I2C
    • CAN
    • MAVLink
    • PX4 SITL
    • ArduPilot SITL
    • PCB / schematic review
    • Altium
    • KiCad
    • EasyEDA Pro
    • LTspice
    • SolidWorks
    • Onshape
    • Power electronics
    • Instrumentation
    • Soldering & assembly
    • Oscilloscope & bench test
    • HIL testing
    • Fault injection
    • Monte Carlo analysis
    • Requirements traceability
    • Additive manufacturing
    • Metal fabrication
    • Chemical manufacturing
    • Python
    • MATLAB
    • Linux
    • Git
    • Docker
    • pytest
    • JavaScript
    • React
    • Next.js

Research

Sensor integrity, in the open.

How much should an autonomous system trust each of its own inputs? Each entry opens into its own page.

All research

Book

The book.

Avionics Research Methods · Volume I
SWORT™
Avionics
Research MethodsVolume IMeasurement, Flight Data, and Evidence
the continuous quantitythe 12-bit record written from itDataset BOOK-SYN-001 · synthetic · illustrative
Andres PeñaPrincipal Aerospace Researcher

Volume I of two · by Andres Peña

Avionics Research Methods

Volume I: Measurement, Flight Data, and Evidence

From a physical quantity to a defended technical claim.

Edition
First edition, 2026
Length
430+ pages
Format
Print
Price
$35

Order by request. Nothing is charged until you confirm.

Contents, claims and who it's for

Writing

From the blog.

Open the wire

On DEV · Dec 19, 2025 · 2 min read

Supercapacitor Innovation with Graphene Aerogel & Carbon Fiber

In the race for next-generation energy storage, incremental improvements won’t cut it. We need...

  • #techtalks
  • #design
  • #community
  • #google
Read on DEV More on the wire

Essays, papers, SWORT updates and industry news from aerospace and defense outlets are on the wire, open to votes and comments.

Contact

Get in touch.

Questions about my work or SWORT, an engineering role, or a program you want to build? Write here and I'll reply by email.

Email
Email
Location

Washington, DC area

Local time