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Thomas O'Brien

I am an ambitious PhD student with a deep interest in general-purpose robotics. My academic and research endeavours have been centered around the development of control techniques to enable robots to interact with their environment in a safe and robust manner to achieve complex tasks.

github.com/Tom0Brien thomas16441@gmail.com

Professional Experience

2024-
Software Engineer

Machine learning-based vision systems for rail operations

4AI Systems
2025-
Research Associate

Vision, planning and state estimation for maritime drones

University of Newcastle
2020-
Robotics Researcher

Humanoid robotics software and research

NUbots
2025
Visiting Researcher

Sampling-based MPC for non-prehensile manipulation

LAAS-CNRS
2025
Visiting Researcher

Energy-based control for underactuated systems

Prisma Lab
2023
Research Assistant

3D LiDAR track detection and dataset tooling

University of Newcastle
2021-2022
Mechatronics Engineer

Drain camera embedded system

Varley Group

Education

2022-
PhD

Passivity-based control for complex robot–environment interactions

University of Newcastle
2018-2021
Bachelor (Honours)

Mechatronics Engineering (Class I Honours)

University of Newcastle

Teaching

2022-
Teaching Assistant / Tutor

AERO3600 – Embedded Control Systems

University of Newcastle
2022-
Teaching Assistant / Tutor

MCHA3500 – Mechatronics Design

University of Newcastle
2024-
Supervisor

ENGG4801 – Final Year Project; SCIE3002 – Work Integrated Learning

University of Newcastle

Achievements

  • World Robot Humanoid Games 2025 Beijing: 5th – RCAP Beijing Masters (Team Leader)
  • RoboCup 2025 Salvador: 3rd – Humanoid League (Team Leader)
  • RoboCup 2024 Eindhoven: 4th – Humanoid League (Team Leader)
  • RoboCup 2023 Bordeaux: Quarterfinalist – Humanoid League
  • RoboCup 2022 Thailand: Quarterfinalist – Humanoid League
  • Warman Competition 2022: 1st – University of Newcastle

Awards

2021

College Medal, College of Engineering Science and Environment

University of Newcastle
2021

College Commendation List

University of Newcastle
2018-2021

Faculty Commendation List (2018–2021)

University of Newcastle
2017

Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Academic Excellence in Year 12

University of Newcastle

Selected Publications

  • [J1] Thomas O'Brien, Joel Ferguson, Alejandro Donaire, "Orbital Stabilization of Hybrid Mechanical Systems - A port-Hamiltonian Approach," Preprint, 2025.
  • [J2] Fadi Gebrayel, Thomas O'Brien, Martin Mujica, Patrick Danès, "Point Cloud Based Visual Planning and Servoing for Autonomous Vine Pruning," Preprint, 2025.
  • [C1] Thomas O'Brien, Joel Ferguson, Alejandro Donaire, "A port-Hamiltonian formulation of mechanical systems with switching contact constraints," European Control Conference (ECC), Thessaloniki, Greece, 2025.
  • [C2] Thomas O'Brien, Joel Ferguson, Alejandro Donaire, "Exponentially Stable Regulation of Mechanical Systems to a Path," IFAC World Congress, Yokohama, Japan, 2023.
  • [C3] Thomas O'Brien, Ysobel Sims, "Exploring GPT-4 for Robotic Agent Strategy with Real-Time State Feedback," ACRA, Sydney, Australia, 2023.
  • [C4] Ysobel Sims, Trent Houliston, Thomas O'Brien, et al., "SoS: A Semi-Synthetic RoboCup Soccer Dataset for Visual Segmentation," RoboCup Symposium, Eindhoven, Netherlands, 2024.
  • [C5] Khaled Saleh, Thomas O'Brien, "Efficient Sequence Model for Early Fall Detection of Humanoid Robots," RoboCup Symposium, Eindhoven, Netherlands, 2024.
  • [C6] Ysobel Sims, Trent Houliston, Thomas O'Brien, "The Director: A Composable Behaviour System with Soft Transitions," RoboCup Symposium, Eindhoven, Netherlands, 2024.
  • [W1] Thomas O'Brien, "Humanoid State Estimation in RoboCup," IEEE-RAS Humanoids, Nancy, France, 2024.

Projects

Software

2025

NUbook – The NUbots team handbook and documentation

github.com/NUbots/NUbook
2025

NUWebots – Webots simulation environment for NUbots robots

github.com/NUbots/NUWebots
2025

tinympc – Lightweight MPC/NMPC in C++ (Eigen3)

github.com/Tom0Brien/tinympc
2023

NUbots – Control, locomotion, state estimation, vision, behaviour software for humanoid robots

github.com/nubots/nubots
2023

tinyrobotics – Lightweight C++ robotics dynamics/kinematics library

github.com/Tom0Brien/tinyrobotics
2023

urdf-visualizer – Web-based robot visualiser (three.js)

github.com/Tom0Brien/urdf-visualizer

Hardware

  • NUgus (2023) – Design and development of small-sized humanoid robot platform
  • NUsense (2025) – Humanoid subcontroller for actuators (Dynamixel) and sensors (IMU) using RS485 and Intel NUC over USB

Reviewing Activities

  • IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) — 2025