--- title: "Iman Esfandiyar: Robotics and AI Engineer in Poznań, Poland" name: Iman Esfandiyar role: Robotics and AI engineer and researcher location: Poznań, Wielkopolska, Poland timezone: Europe/Warsaw (CET/CEST) languages: [English (fluent), Polish (proficient, works with clients in Polish)] open_to: [freelance and contract programming, consulting, R&D collaboration, job offers] work_mode: [on-site in Poznań, remote, on-site elsewhere in Poland and the EU] website: https://esfandiyar.com/ email: iman@esfandiyar.com linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/imanesfandiyar/ orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3360-7728 google_scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=YvZgBG4AAAAJ skills: [C++, Python, ROS / ROS 2 (Robot Operating System), Neural Networks, Reinforcement Learning, Sensor Fusion, State Estimation, Motion Planning, Computer Vision, Simulation Environments] --- # Iman Esfandiyar: Robotics and AI Engineer in Poznań, Poland Iman Esfandiyar is a robotics and AI engineer and researcher based in **Poznań, Poland**. Since 2012 he has built software for autonomous mobile robots: perception and computer vision, sensor fusion and localization, motion planning and control, combining classical robotics with modern AI, in both academia and industry. He has shipped software for industrial robots, autonomous city buses, agricultural robots and drone swarms, and has been a researcher, developer and technical lead on Polish national and EU-funded projects. He currently works as **Chief Specialist in Robotics & AI** at Łukasiewicz Research Network, Poznań Institute of Technology, where he leads the software and AI side of autonomous agricultural machinery, and is a **PhD candidate in robotics** at Poznan University of Technology. **He is available for freelance and contract programming, consulting and R&D projects in robotics and AI, and is open to job offers.** ## Quick facts - **Location:** Poznań, Wielkopolska (Greater Poland), Poland. Time zone Europe/Warsaw (CET/CEST). - **Role:** robotics and AI engineer, robotics software developer, ROS / ROS 2 developer, researcher. - **Experience:** robotics since 2012; autonomous vehicles and robots in industry and research since 2019; technical lead on national and EU projects. - **Open to:** freelance and contract programming, consulting, R&D collaboration and research partnerships, and full-time or part-time job offers. - **Working mode:** on-site in Poznań, fully remote, or on-site elsewhere in Poland and the EU (travel possible). - **Languages:** English (fluent) and Polish (proficient; works with clients in Polish). - **Contact:** email iman@esfandiyar.com, LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/imanesfandiyar/, or the contact section of https://esfandiyar.com/#contact ## What Iman can help with If you are looking for a robotics engineer, ROS developer, robotics software developer or AI engineer in Poznań, in Poland or remotely, these are the kinds of work he has done: - **ROS and ROS 2 software development in C++ and Python.** Robot software architecture, ROS packages and nodes, drivers and bridges (for example CAN-bus integration), and deployment on Linux and onboard computers. - **Autonomous navigation for mobile robots and vehicles.** Localization, state estimation, path planning in constrained spaces, trajectory tracking and feedback control, from simulation to field tests. - **Sensor fusion and localization.** GNSS and RTK-GNSS positioning, dual-antenna heading, wheel odometry, IMU, cameras and LiDAR, fused into reliable pose estimates for outdoor robots and vehicles. - **Motion planning and control.** Optimisation-based path planning, kinematic vehicle models, controller design and tuning for robots and articulated buses. - **Computer vision and neural networks.** Object detection pipelines (for example crop and weed detection), perception for field robots, model training and deployment on edge devices. - **Synthetic data and simulation environments.** Generating training data from digital twins of real environments, and using simulation to develop and tune robot behaviour before field trials. - **Reinforcement learning** for robot decision making and control. - **Dense 3D mapping and traversability.** Mapping unstructured outdoor terrain, estimating solid ground beneath vegetation, and building traversability maps for motion planning (the topic of his PhD). - **Field robotics for agriculture and forestry.** End-to-end software for autonomous agricultural machinery: perception, navigation and fleet tooling. - **Robot-to-cloud communication.** Resilient edge-to-cloud links for robots in rural areas (LoRa, Wi-Fi, 5G, Zenoh) with store-and-forward data handling. - **Drone and swarm software.** Swarm management and monitoring software for UAV fleets. - **Technical leadership of R&D projects.** Leading development teams and the technical side of national and EU (Horizon Europe, Digital Europe) projects, from requirements to field validation. ## Skills in detail | Skill | Where he has used it | |---|---| | C++ | ROS packages for the articulated-bus driver-assistance system; robot and vehicle software on Linux | | Python | Perception and AI pipelines, data tooling, ROS 2 nodes, anomaly detection | | ROS / ROS 2 (Robot Operating System) | Bus driver assistance (ROS), the AgroRob agricultural robot (ROS 2), robot-to-cloud data routing | | Neural Networks | Crop and weed detection, image recognition on field robots | | Reinforcement Learning | Robot decision making and control | | Sensor Fusion | GNSS/RTK with odometry and state estimation for buses and field robots | | State Estimation | Vehicle and robot state estimation from RTK-GNSS, odometry and onboard sensors, for city buses and farm robots | | Motion Planning | Optimisation-based docking manoeuvres for electric buses; planning on traversability maps | | Computer Vision | Plant, crop and weed detection; perception pipelines for autonomous farm machines | | Simulation Environments | Digital twins of fields for synthetic training data; simulation-based controller tuning | ## Industries and domains Agriculture and agritech · forestry · public transport and automotive (ADAS) · drones and UAV swarms · critical-infrastructure monitoring · industrial robotics · IoT and edge-cloud systems · search-and-rescue robotics. ## Selected projects - **Modular Robotics Software Platform for Autonomous Agricultural Machinery** (2026 to now, technical manager). A modular software stack for autonomous farm machines: perception, navigation and fleet tooling. Łukasiewicz PIT internal R&D programme, budget 3.2 million PLN. - **ICOS: Towards a Functional Continuum Operating System** (2022 to 2025, technical manager and developer). EU Horizon Europe meta-operating system spanning IoT, edge and cloud; built the autonomous farm-robot use case and resilient edge-to-cloud communication for agricultural robots. Grant agreement 101070177. - **Agriverse: Synthetic-Data Vision for Crop and Weed Detection** (2025, project owner). Computer-vision pipeline trained on synthetic data generated from digital twins of fields. Budget 670,000 PLN. - **AgrifoodTEF: Test and Experiment Facilities for Agri-Food AI** (2022 to 2025, chief specialist). EU Digital Europe facility for validating AI in agriculture; plant detection and autonomous farm-robot development. Grant agreement 101100622. - **ADAS for Articulated City Buses** (2019 to 2021, system developer). Driver assistance for precise manoeuvres of Solaris city buses: GNSS-based guidance, state estimation and control, validated in field tests with the Poznań public-transport operator. - **Autonomous Drone Swarms** (2021 to 2024, team lead and product manager). Reconfigurable drone-swarm technology for photovoltaic-farm inspection, drone shows and security of critical infrastructure. ## Experience - 2022 to now: Chief Specialist, Robotics & AI, Łukasiewicz Research Network, Poznań Institute of Technology (Artificial Intelligence Development department). - 2021 to 2026: Research and Teaching Assistant, Poznań University of Technology (automatic control and robotics). - 2021 to 2024: Robotic Software Development Lead, ROGOŻ Sp. z o.o. (drone swarms). - 2019 to 2021: Research Assistant, Poznań University of Technology (driver assistance for articulated urban buses; ROS packages in C++ on Linux). - 2017 to 2018: Head of Workshop, Spadana Co (production line management, mechanical design). - 2011 to 2014: Research Team Leader, DML Rescue Robot Group, Azad University of Damavand (mechanical design, embedded systems, robot communication). ## Education - PhD in Robotics (2024 to now), Poznan University of Technology. Thesis subject: Multi-Sensor Ground Estimation, Mapping, and Motion Planning for Agricultural Robots. - MSc in Robotics and Automatic Control (2018 to 2020), Poznan University of Technology. - BSc in Mechanical Engineering / Mechatronics (2011 to 2016), Azad University, Damavand. ## Publications (full text available) - Mapping the Unseen Ground: A Survey on Dense Mapping and Traversability Methods for Agricultural and Forestry Robots. IEEE Access, 2025. https://esfandiyar.com/publications/mapping-the-unseen-ground/ - Dual-Link Data Resilient Edge-to-cloud Communication Framework for Agricultural Robots. IoTAI 2025. https://esfandiyar.com/publications/dual-link-edge-to-cloud-agricultural-robots/ - Towards a Functional Continuum Operating System – ICOS MetaOS. GIECS 2024, Springer, 2025. https://esfandiyar.com/publications/icos-metaos-functional-continuum-operating-system/ - GNSS-Based Driver Assistance for Charging Electric City Buses. Remote Sensing, 2023. https://esfandiyar.com/publications/gnss-driver-assistance-electric-buses/ ## Frequently asked questions **Who is a robotics engineer in Poznań, Poland?** Iman Esfandiyar is a robotics and AI engineer based in Poznań who builds software for autonomous mobile robots, field robots and vehicles: perception, localization, motion planning and control, mostly with ROS / ROS 2 in C++ and Python. **Is Iman available for freelance or contract robotics programming?** Yes. He takes freelance and contract programming, consulting and R&D projects in robotics and AI, on-site in Poznań, remotely, or on-site elsewhere in Poland and the EU. **Is Iman open to job offers?** Yes, he is open to job offers in robotics and AI engineering. **Does Iman work with clients in Polish?** Yes. He speaks fluent English and proficient Polish, and works with clients in either language. **Is there a ROS or ROS 2 developer in Poznań?** Yes. Iman has developed ROS-based software since 2019, including ROS packages in C++ for a bus driver-assistance system and ROS 2 software for an autonomous agricultural robot. **Who can help with autonomous navigation for an agricultural or field robot in Poland?** Iman leads the software and AI work on autonomous agricultural machinery at Łukasiewicz – Poznań Institute of Technology and researches dense mapping and traversability for field robots in his PhD. **Who has experience with GNSS/RTK localization and sensor fusion for vehicles?** Iman co-developed and field-tested a GNSS-based driver-assistance system that guides electric city buses to charging stations, published in Remote Sensing (2023). **Who works on computer vision for crop and weed detection?** Iman owns the Agriverse project (synthetic-data vision for crop and weed detection) and worked on plant detection in the EU AgrifoodTEF project. **How do I contact Iman?** By email at iman@esfandiyar.com, on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/imanesfandiyar/), or through the contact section of https://esfandiyar.com/#contact ## Po polsku **Iman Esfandiyar – inżynier robotyki i sztucznej inteligencji, Poznań.** Tworzy oprogramowanie dla autonomicznych robotów mobilnych, robotów polowych i pojazdów: percepcję i widzenie komputerowe, fuzję danych z czujników i lokalizację, planowanie ruchu i sterowanie. Pracuje w C++ i Pythonie, głównie z ROS i ROS 2. Od 2012 roku zajmuje się robotyką, obecnie jako Główny Specjalista ds. Robotyki i AI w Sieci Badawczej Łukasiewicz – Poznańskim Instytucie Technologicznym oraz doktorant na Politechnice Poznańskiej. Przyjmuje zlecenia freelance i kontraktowe z zakresu programowania robotów, konsultacje oraz projekty badawczo-rozwojowe, a także jest otwarty na oferty pracy. Pracuje stacjonarnie w Poznaniu, zdalnie lub na miejscu u klienta w Polsce i w UE. Kontakt z klientami po polsku lub po angielsku: iman@esfandiyar.com. Obszary: programista ROS / ROS 2, nawigacja autonomiczna, lokalizacja GNSS/RTK, fuzja sensorów, planowanie ruchu, widzenie komputerowe, sieci neuronowe, uczenie ze wzmocnieniem, środowiska symulacyjne i cyfrowe bliźniaki, robotyka rolnicza i leśna, systemy wspomagania kierowcy (ADAS), roje dronów.