Michael Ripperger
Senior Research Engineer at Southwest Research Institute
San Antonio, Texas, United States
Summary
👤
Senior🎓
Top SchoolMichael Ripperger is a senior research engineer and robotics software lead with nine years of experience designing and deploying robot path planning, 3D perception, and manufacturing automation solutions at Southwest Research Institute. He blends a mechanical engineering background from Texas A&M with an MS in Computer Science from Georgia Tech to bridge hardware design and advanced software, frequently leading teams for government and commercial robotics projects. Michael is an active contributor to ROS-Industrial training materials, updating MoveIt configurations and build scripts to keep training current with ROS Melodic—evidence of practical expertise in widely used open-source robotics tools. Based in San Antonio, he combines hands-on mechanical design experience with research-grade software development, enabling rapid prototyping through to fielded systems. Notably, his early industry internships from Tesla to Toyota give him uncommon depth in materials, cost, and supplier engineering that informs robust, production-ready robotic solutions.
9 years of coding experience
8 years of employment as a software developer
Master of Science - MS, Computer Science, Master of Science - MS, Computer Science at Georgia Institute of TechnologyBachelor of Science (BS), Mechanical Engineering, Bachelor of Science (BS), Mechanical Engineering at Texas A&M University
English
Github Skills (5)
moveit10
ros10
c-language8
cprogramming-language8
documentation6
Programming languages (11)
Github contributions (5)
ros-industrial/industrial_training
Jul 2018 - Jul 2020
ROS-Industrial Training Material
Role in this project:
Robotics Developer
Robotics DeveloperContributions:9 reviews, 74 commits, 60 PRs in 2 years
Contributions summary:Michael primarily contributed to the ROS-Industrial training materials by updating the training exercises and documentation. They updated references to ROS Melodic, modified build scripts, and updated MoveIt configuration files. The user also modified code examples for specific exercises, demonstrating an understanding of ROS and MoveIt functionalities.
rosros-industrial
marip8/sampling_kinematics_plugin
May 2020 - Aug 2021
A MoveIt! kinematics plugin for solving IK with robots mounted on external axes
Contributions:15 commits, 9 PRs, 17 pushes in 1 year 3 months
moveit
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