Pictures/videos of projects in portfolio section
Ethan Borochoff
Westlake Village, California
ethan@borochoff.org
+1-805-812-2500

Education: Viewpoint - Sophomore (2028)
GPA: 4.13 (Weighted)

Work experience:

SAAZ Micro Inc.

PCB design, UAV and other systems design

• Successfully used my 3 foot UAV to test and integrate experimental sensing systems (flight tested) (see in portfolio)

• Leading design of a modular UAV/aircraft sensor ball 

• Leading design of a 9 foot heavy lift multirole UAV 

TECHNICAL SKILLS:

Hardware Systems:

• UAV design

• Mission payload architecture

• Thermal + low light integrated systems

•  Hand held/helmet mounted visual augmentation systems

• Embedded power regulation

• RF telemetry systems

• Custom PCB schematics and layout (Kicad)

Other:

• Experience with ESD controlled areas

Tools:

Design:
Onshape, KiCad

Software and control:
Mission Planner, QGroundControl, VESC Tool, VS code

Fabrication:
3D printing (structural components), laser cutting

Personal Engineering projects:
Purpose: My engineering projects focus on either handheld observation devices or unmanned platforms that integrate spectral imaging, onboard compute, power management, and RF communications into cohesive working systems.

UAVs (sUAS):

Heavy Lift Multirotor UAV (5 foot Diagonal) (in process of manufacturing):

• fully custom designed airframe and custom hardware setup

• 2x 50x50mm mounting hardpoints + 4x side sensor mounts

• Designed to test prototype onboard compute (dual Jetson + Pixhawk)

• System intended for MPC based control and mission modeling testing and development
  
  

3 foot diagonal multirotor UAV (has flown)

• Custom hardware configuration and power distribution

• Partially custom airframe

• Used as flight testbed for payload integration and control experiments

• Used as test bed for hardware for the 5 ft drone

• Successfully flown and iterated on structural design
  
  

2 foot diagonal multirotor UAV (has flown)

• Early test platform for hardware validation and integration

• Custom setup and iterative development

UGVs:

3 ft UGV Platform - In Design

• 3kW BLDC RWD drivetrain concept 

• Designed for UAV transport and deployment

• Basic self driving with raspberry pi

DEVICES:

LWIR Thermal Imaging Systems:

8 µm Compact Thermal Tube (Functional Prototype):

• Fully integrated mechanical enclosure

• LEMO connector for power 

• Designed for handheld or helmet mounted operation

• Future production intent: CNC-machined aluminum + glass filled nylon

• Design focuses on rigidity, sealing, and alignment stability, all to make it as effective as possible in as broad of conditions as possible.

12 µm Thermal Module (in development)

• similar architecture to the 8µm

Early Industrial Thermal Core Integration experiments

• Large format handheld thermal unit using repurposed industrial cores

• Initial systems integration and enclosure experimentation along with power testing

 (ended up using all of these cores for uav/ugv related systems)

Analog image intensifier tubes:

• custom gen II night vision tube prototype (Experimental)
  
  

PAYLOAD & MODULE DEVELOPMENT:

• 3-axis stabilized RunCam gimbal (prototype stage, software in development)

• 1-axis stabilized thermal gimbal (industrial core integration)

• Rotary drone drop mechanism (designed)

• Dual servo actuated pin drone drop system (designed, built, tested, fully functional)

• 5–22V to 5V/3.3V regulator + power latch PCB (in design)

• LoRa communication modules (ESP32-based)

• UAV compute stack concept (Jetson Orin Nano + AGX Xavier + Pixhawk 6C)
  
  

LEADERSHIP & ACTIVITIES:

• Founder/Leader of Engineering club (2 years in high school, 1 year in middle school)

• First Robotics (high school team FTW2584, CADer (worked on some main systems and auxiliary systems for the robot)