I was born and raised in Mexico. I graduated with honors from the Mexican Naval Academy in 1996 and did a Masters Degree in Electrical Engineering (with distinction) and an Electrical Engineer's Degree at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA, from 2001 to 2004, where I worked under Dr. Isaac Kaminer on autonomous landing of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs).
After graduating from the NPS, I worked for two and a half years at a research center in Mexico as the engineer-in-charge in two embedded systems projects:
- The "Cancer" project which consisted in the automation of a microscope, a hardware-software interface, and a Database front-end, to support the Naval Hospital's need to file digital pictures of pathological cases, specifically those related to cervical cancer.
- The "Fiber Optic Gyro", which was related with a fiber optic gyro that was being developed for the Mexican Navy. I specifically worked on the microcontroller implementation of the speed control for a spinning unit as well as the decoding and processing of the main sensor's output.
During the Summer of 2007 I designed and developed a CAN Controlled Servo with Optional Contactless Magnetic Rotary Encoder Module which won a Distinctive Excellence award during the Circuit Cellar - Microchip 2007 Embedded Control Design Contest.
During the Fall of 2007 I worked with David Ilstrup on a project on Aerial Photography Using a Nokia N95 which worked out really nice. You can read all about the project at the class website.
Currently I am a PhD candidate at UCSC working under Dr. Gabriel Elkaim at the Autonomous Systems Lab with the Naval Postgraduate School's Unammned Systems Lab on developing an easily reconfigurable open source autopilot for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles named SLUGS.
I am an embedded systems engineer by profession and a software developer by hobby, and many times one crosses the path of the other. And honestly, it is quite hard for me to decide which one is more fun. You can find a way more formal resume of me at emurse.
Publications
Refereed Publications
X. Yun , M.
Lizarraga, E. Bachmann, R. McGhee .
“An improved quaternion-based Kalman filter for real-time
tracking of rigid body orientation”. In Proceedings of the
International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems,
2003. (IROS 2003).
I. Kaminer, O. Yakimenko, V. Dobrokhodov, M. Lizarraga, A.
Pascoal. “Cooperative Control of Small UAVs for Naval
Applications”. In Proceedings of the 43rd IEEE Conference
on Decision and Control 2004.
V. Dobrokhodov and M. Lizarraga. “Developing Serial
Communication Interfaces for Rapid Prototyping of
Navigation and Control Tasks”. In AIAA Modeling and
Simulation Technologies Conference and Exhibit 2005.
M. Lizarraga, V. Dobrokhodov, I. Kaminer. “Implementación de un Sistema de control para
Recuperación Autónoma de un Vehiculo Aéreo no Tripulado
(UAV)”. In Proceedings of AMIME Primer Congreso
Internacional de Mecatronica, 2005.
V.N. Dobrokhodov, O.A. Yakimenko, K.D. Jones, I.I. Kaminer,
E. Bourakov, I. Kitsios, and M. Lizarraga. “New Generation
of Rapid Flight Test Prototyping System for Small Unmanned
Air Vehicles.” AIAA Modeling and Simulation Technologies
Conference Proceedings, 2007
Non Refereed
Publications
M.
Lizarraga, R. Toledo. “Seguridad en Internet: ¿Un problema de
Seguridad Nacional?”(Internet Security: A National
Security Problem?). In Revista de la Secretaria de
Marina. 2004.
M. Lizarraga, C. Aparicio, J.
Rivera. “Analisis
de la variación de las caracteristicas aerodinamicas de la
aeronave Lancair Legacy al colocarle objetos en los puntos
duros del fuselaje” (Variation Analysis of the aerodynamic
characteristics of the Lancair Legacy Aircraft when putting
objects on the fuselage’s hard points). Reporte Tecnico
INIDETAM-001-2005.
M. Lizarraga. “Aplicaciones de Codigo Abierto: Una
Alternativa Viable” (Open Source Software: A Valid
Alternative). In Revista de la Secretaria de Marina.
2005.