Olivier Michel
Lead Software Architect at Cyberbotics Ltd.
Lausanne, Vaud, Switzerland
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolOlivier Michel is a veteran software architect and entrepreneur with 25+ years building simulation and distributed systems, best known as the founder and CEO of Cyberbotics and creator of the widely used Webots robot simulator. He combines deep research credentials (PhD-level work and early EPFL development) with hands-on engineering, regularly contributing to Webots code and ROS2 integrations to bridge simulation and robotics middleware. As Lead Software Architect at Crésus, he shapes platform architecture, CI/CD and secure cross-platform products while mentoring teams and driving R&D in real-time systems and cryptography. His background includes delivering complex industrial and academic projects, supervising dozens of student collaborations, and publishing extensively—skills that let him translate cutting-edge research into production-grade software. An understated strength is his knack for fixing brittle parsers and build processes, reflecting a practical focus on robustness that keeps large codebases healthy.
13 years of coding experience
14 years of employment as a software developer
Doctor of Philosophy - PhD Computer Science, Doctor of Philosophy - PhD Computer Science at Université Côte d'AzurDoctor of Philosophy Computational Science, Doctor of Philosophy Computational Science at IPMC CNRS - University Nice Sophia AntipolisDEA Computer Science, DEA Computer Science at Université de Technologie de Compiègne (UTC)
English, French
Stackoverflow
805reputation
343kreached
50answers
3questions
Github Skills (22)
webots10
simulation10
debugging10
debug10
parser10
robotics10
python10
simulations10
parsing10
parse10
ros10
refactoring9
robot8
makefile7
while-loop6
Programming languages (15)
Github contributions (5)
cyberbotics/webots
Nov 2018 - Jan 2023
Webots Robot Simulator
Role in this project:
Software Engineer (Parser & Framework)
Software Engineer (Parser & Framework)Contributions:14 releases, 2847 reviews, 3295 commits in 4 years 3 months
Contributions summary:Olivier's contributions primarily involve debugging and refactoring code related to Webots world file parsing, particularly the `webots_parser.py` script. The user's work included fixing issues with the processing of data and correcting several parsing errors. The user also modified the build processes by correcting files and paths.
robotics-simulationignitionsdfaccelerationsimulation
cyberbotics/webots_ros2
Sep 2019 - Nov 2021
Webots ROS 2 packages
Role in this project:Full-stack Developer
Full-stack DeveloperContributions:405 reviews, 12 commits, 139 PRs in 2 years 2 months
Contributions summary:Olivier primarily contributes to the Webots ROS 2 packages, focusing on enhancements and integrations. They improved the functionality of the `webots_node.py` file, including argument handling and ROS2 parameter implementation. Furthermore, the user modified various launch files to incorporate ROS2 parameters and configurations, specifically for universal robot examples and other robot examples, as well as other minor improvements such as LED tests. These changes suggest a focus on bridging Webots simulation with ROS2.
webots-rosignitionroboticsrobotics-simulationros2
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