Zachary Lowell
Engineer at Ascend Engineering
Chicago, Illinois, United States
Summary
👤
Senior🎓
Top SchoolZachary Lowell is a co-founder and engineer with nine years of experience building software-driven drone and sensor systems from Chicago. As a founder of Ascend Engineering he pivoted the company from last-mile delivery operations to bespoke drone software and data solutions, acting as both software engineer and data scientist to turn client visions into deployed systems. His embedded systems work includes porting the widely used PX4 Autopilot to Qualcomm’s Qurt platform, enabling PX4 to run on Snapdragon-class hardware — a contribution that bridges open-source flight control and commercial IoT platforms. Prior roles in technology risk consulting, aerospace systems engineering, and academic research give him a strong grounding in reliability, data analysis, and physics-informed software. He holds a Master’s in Data Science Engineering and a BS in Engineering Physics, combining rigorous analytical training with hands-on product delivery.
10 years of coding experience
Master's degree, Data Science Engineering, Master's degree, Data Science Engineering at DePaul UniversityUniversity of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Stackoverflow
1reputation
0reached
0answers
0questions
Github Skills (9)
embedded10
px410
autopilot10
sys10
cprogramming-language9
c-language9
task-management9
real-time-systems8
cmake7
Programming languages (4)
Github contributions (5)
PX4/PX4-Autopilot
Oct 2022 - Dec 2022
PX4 Autopilot Software
Role in this project:
Embedded Systems Engineer / IoT Developer
Embedded Systems Engineer / IoT DeveloperContributions:4 reviews, 15 commits, 14 PRs in 2 months
Contributions summary:Zachary primarily contributed to the porting of the PX4 Autopilot software to the Qurt platform, including the implementation of core functionalities like tasks, real-time clock (HRT), and work queues. Their work involved integrating platform-specific headers, adapting existing PX4 code, and enabling communication through the uORB (micro Object Request Broker) messaging system on the Qurt platform. These changes are crucial for enabling PX4 to operate on Qualcomm's Snapdragon platforms and other Qurt-based systems.
px4pixhawkuavuasdronecode
Essential-Aero/PX4-Autopilot
Jan 2022 - Feb 2022
PX4 Autopilot Software
Contributions:17 pushes in 1 month
autopilotpx4raspberry-pipx4-autopilot
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