James Goppert
Managing Director Purdue UAS Research And Test Facility And Research Assistant Professor at CogniPilot Foundation
West Lafayette, Indiana, United States
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolJames Goppert is an experienced aerospace software engineer and leader with 14 years building and stewarding flight-critical systems at the intersection of embedded firmware, robotics, and simulation. As Managing Director of Purdue’s UAS Research and Test Facility and a Research Assistant Professor, he combines academic rigor (PhD-level aerospace expertise) with hands-on engineering running a robotics company (JMG Robotics) and co-chairing the CogniPilot Foundation. His open-source contributions span flagship drone projects—PX4, MAVLink/MAVROS, and QGroundControl—focusing on sensor fidelity, odometry/vision integration, and robust build/packaging automation that improve real-world flight testing and simulation. He’s equally comfortable refactoring low-level uORB messaging and tuning optical flow/lidar plugins as he is leading facility-scale research and test operations. Colleagues rely on him for pragmatic solutions that bridge simulation and flight hardware, and he brings a rare mix of academic insight, entrepreneurism, and deep firmware-to-cloud systems experience.
14 years of coding experience
6 years of employment as a software developer
Doctor of Philosophy - PhD, Aerospace, Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering, Doctor of Philosophy - PhD, Aerospace, Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering at Purdue University
Github Skills (49)
unit-testing10
simulation10
scipy10
c-language10
gazebosim10
qt10
python10
mavlink10
firmware10
testing10
simulations10
packaging10
drones10
build-system10
bash10
Programming languages (18)
Github contributions (5)
RomanBapst/sitl_gazebo
Jul 2016 - Aug 2019
Role in this project:
Embedded Systems Engineer / IoT Developer
Embedded Systems Engineer / IoT DeveloperContributions:53 commits in 3 years
Contributions summary:James primarily contributed to the `gazebo_mavlink_interface` and optical flow/lidar plugin implementations. They made changes to integrate with Gazebo versions, fixed attitude calculations, and introduced configurable subtopics for sensors. The user also worked on adding GPS noise, and modified the airspeed calculations, indicating a focus on enhancing sensor fidelity and simulation accuracy.
mavlink/mavlink
Sep 2011 - Feb 2017
Marshalling / communication library for drones.
Role in this project:DevOps Engineer & Automation Engineer
DevOps Engineer & Automation EngineerContributions:89 commits, 4 PRs, 33 pushes in 5 years 5 months
Contributions summary:James contributed significantly to the project's build and packaging infrastructure. Their work involved setting up CMake packaging, adding an autobuild script, and improving the packaging process for distribution. They also updated the pymavlink module and incorporated fixes for the build system, demonstrating a focus on automation and ensuring a reliable build and release process.
communication-librarydronescommunicationmarshalling
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