Peter Mitrano is a Senior Robotics Engineer and PhD candidate in robotics specializing in robotic manipulation and deformable object handling, with 12 years of experience building high-DOF systems and research-driven solutions. He has published planning and learning algorithms at top conferences that enable robots to model environments and act intelligently, and he’s transitioning his academic work into industry research roles at companies like Berkshire Grey and Agile Robots. A pragmatic engineer, he contributes to prominent open-source projects such as MoveIt and WPILib—improving Python motion-planning interfaces and real-time robot telemetry—and even added MIDI/MusicXML features to the widely used music21 toolkit. Comfortable across simulation, ROS, C++ and Python, he blends rigorous research with hands-on systems development, often surfacing subtle API and usability fixes that reduce common user errors.
12 years of coding experience
2 years of employment as a software developer
Doctor of Philosophy - PhD, Robotics, Doctor of Philosophy - PhD, Robotics at University of Michigan
In progress, Computer Science / Robotics Engineering, 4.0 GPA, In progress, Computer Science / Robotics Engineering, 4.0 GPA at Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Contributions:36 commits, 8 PRs, 125 comments in 1 year 6 months
Contributions summary:Peter's contributions center around extending the functionality of the WPILibJ and WPILibC libraries. They added methods to the `DriverStation` and `Joystick` classes to retrieve counts for axes, POVs, and buttons on connected joysticks, along with the ability to retrieve individual button states. Furthermore, the user implemented new methods related to the `PowerDistributionPanel` (PDP) class and corresponding JNI calls, enabling the retrieval of total current, power, and energy consumption metrics for the robot. Additionally, they worked on enhancing the `CameraServer` class.
Contributions:31 reviews, 13 commits, 9 PRs in 10 months
Contributions summary:Peter made significant contributions to the MoveIt motion planning framework, primarily by addressing ROS namespacing issues within the `moveit_commander` module. They implemented and improved the Python interface, adding features like `get_current_state_bounded`, `get_current_state`, and `enforce_bounds`. Furthermore, the user added a debugging log statement for a common error and introduced `get_active_joint_names` functionality, enhancing the API's usability. These changes demonstrate a focus on improving the framework's Python bindings and addressing potential user errors.
roboticsmotionrobotmoveitplanning
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Peter Mitrano - Senior Robotics Engineer at Agile Robots SE