Tom Sloan

Robot Vision Engineer & AI Researcher

Robot Vision Engineer specializing in SLAM, computer vision, and drone-based 3D mapping systems. Expertise in AWS, Docker, Python, and embedded systems. Constantly working on projects to push the boundaries of autonomous systems and AI.

Carleton University Computer Systems Engineering graduate with distinction, I'll be defending my Master's of Applied Science in Electrical and Computer Engineering with focus on Neural SLAM and augmented reality applications in November 2025.

Currently working as a Researcher at Carleton University developing real-time indoor 3D mapping systems using consumer drones, cloud-based SLAM, and AR visualization. Previous experience includes DevOps engineering at Magnet Forensics and spectrum engineering at Telesat.

Education

Carleton University

Master of Applied Science - MASc

🎯 Field: Electrical and Computer Engineering

📅 January 2024 - November 2025

Thesis: Indoor 3D Modeling Using Consumer Drones and Neural Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) for Virtual Reality and a Cloud Architecture. Defending November 2025.

Carleton University

Bachelor of Engineering - BE

🎯 Field: Computer Systems

📅 September 2017 - December 2021

🎖️ Graduated with distinction

Computer Systems Engineering covering hardware, software, and systems design with strong foundation in embedded systems and circuit design.

Work Experience

Researcher Current

Carleton University

📅 October 2023 - Present

📍 Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

💼 Full-time

Led the design and testing of a real-time indoor 3D mapping system using a consumer drone (DJI Mini 3), integrating monocular camera and IMU with cloud-based SLAM framework for AR applications. Implemented modular software architecture using Docker, RabbitMQ, and React.js to offload high-computation tasks to remote server, enabling real-time visualization on desktop and AR headsets.

DockerRabbitMQReact.jsUnitySLAMARComputer VisionPython

DevOps Engineer

Magnet Forensics

📅 April 2022 - June 2023

📍 Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

💼 Permanent Full-time

Worked in a small team environment using DevOps tools including Jenkins, Linux, Python and PowerShell to help manage thousands of software builds a day on dozens of on-premise servers. Helped with the migration from on-premise to AWS cloud using CloudFormation and EC2.

JenkinsLinuxPythonPowerShellAWSCloudFormationEC2

Spectrum Engineering Co-Op

Telesat

📅 May 2020 - December 2021

📍 Ottawa/Kanata, Ontario

💼 Full-time Internship

Made an alternative user interface and API in Python to interact with MATLAB giving the ability to directly use satellite XML data without requiring expensive MATLAB add-ons. Wrote extensive tests and code to analyze satellite spectrum use for international telecommunications regulations.

PythonMATLABTelecommunicationsSatellite

Research/Teaching Assistant

Carleton University

📅 May 2018 - December 2021

📍 Ottawa, Canada

💼 Part-time

Designed and built prototype hardware systems for non-invasive monitoring of key health markers (heart rate, respiration rate, body fluid flow) in older adults. Collaborated with faculty and graduate students on health-monitoring research projects while providing teaching assistance and laboratory instruction for computer engineering courses.

Hardware DesignSensorsData AcquisitionPythonC/C++TeachingResearch

Projects

Master's Thesis in Artificial Intelligence

AI Research

Current research in advanced AI and machine learning at Carleton University. Exploring novel approaches to intelligent systems with focus on practical applications and theoretical foundations. Expected completion: October 2025.

AI ResearchIn Progress

Smart Band Project

Sensors, PCB, and Bluetooth

The Smart Band project is the capstone project of the personal projects that I completed while attending university. The goal of the project was to allow a user to control any smart device with gestures using a device like a Fitbit. To do this, I designed and fabricated a small, printed circuit board (PCB) that could gather information, analyze a user's motion, and determine what the gesture was. The band would then relay this information to the device to which it was connected.

HardwareProgrammingIoT

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Smart Home Project

Sensors, iOS, and Bluetooth

The Smart home project is a culmination of various projects that I completed throughout my time at Carleton University. I created an iOS smartphone app to control the various physical devices which I built. The devices range from smart lights to smart switches, to smart blinds. To connect a device to the app was as simple as touching the device's NFC tag to the phone, at which point the device could be completely controlled over BLE.

HardwareProgrammingIoT

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Smart Pillbox

B.Eng Capstone: Medical Device

The Smart Pillbox was the capstone project of my university degree. The goal of The Smart Pillbox project was to design and construct a medication storage device that will allow medical practitioners the ability to monitor consumption of medications, set reminders and alarms, and enable a locking mechanism, if required, for that given patient. This device was designed to help improve the lifestyles of patients and their caregivers who have memory loss illnesses.

HardwareIoT

Reddit Client

Codecademy Full Stack Web Developer Portfolio Project

Created a Reddit Client using the Reddit API and react. Based the layout off of Pinterest, we decided to implement a version of reddit where new posts are displayed in columns, to allow quicker and more engaging viewing. There is a black diamond toggle button in the corner to change the number of columns, as well as some preloaded subreddits. The search bar provides the user a method to display whatever reddit content they wish.

Web Development

Twitter Quote Bot

Automated quote plagiarism from my favourite authors

The Twitter Bot I built connected to an online quote repository (https://www.quotes.net/) which contains many of quotes from authors I admire (such as Marcus Aurelius and Seneca). The goal of the bot was to posts quotes to my Twitter timeline once a day. This was written in Python and deployed on Heroku. This bot was disabled to not spam my feed; however, the source code can be seen on my GitHub.

Web DevelopmentIoT

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Automated Hydroponics System

Sensors, Pumps, and Free Food

In an attempt to grow coffee hydroponically and locally in Ottawa, a drip automated hydroponic system was built. The system is currently in the 'alpha' stage and is being tested with several smaller plants that are easier to set up such as lettuce, and basil. The end result of the system will be for it to contain Arabica coffee and green tea plants.

HardwareEmbedded

Full Stack Development Course

Front End and Back End, including React and Redux

The Full Stack Development course by Codecademy was very useful at transitioning my development interests to more web-based projects. This course was completed over the course of summer 2021. In total, I spent hundreds of hours improving my web development skills. Throughout doing this course I took breaks to build extensive projects (such as my previous portfolio website!).

Web Development

Boat Refurbishment

New Hardware Implementation and Restoration

Transforming an antique wooden speed boat with rotted wood and various parts missing by my cousin and myself. The boat is being remade with many technology improvement and include new smart devices. The motor has been repaired, the wood replaced and the vessel is seaworthy again after decades of sitting around and wasting away.

HardwareIoT