Jordi Vila
Hernández De Lorenzo

Engineer, Programmer, Horse rider, Traveller, Robotics-passionate

About

I am a curious engineer that loves to travel and meet new people.

I am the Founder and CTO of a Fleet Management and Predictive Maintenance software company serving the United States Air Force.

Before launching my startup, I received an MBA from Stanford, worked at NASA for 6+ years, and received a BSc and MSc from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia. At NASA, I lead teams of engineers and scientists in several missions where we built and launched Space Telescopes that look for extraterrestrial life. In 2019, I was recognized for my work with 1 of the 4 Early Career Public Achievement Medals across the agency, which employs 80,000 scientists and engineers. It was my dream job, constant learning, exceptional team and impacting the future of humanity. I also wanted to learn about business and entrepreneurship, bridge the gap between tech and Government. That's why I went to Stanford and launched my startup.

Before moving to Silicon Valley, I had never heard the words “customer discovery" or "product market fit”. Though I had applied those concepts as CEO of Equitur, an equestrian travel agency organizing Safaris in Africa, I had never properly studied them. I never thought that Entrepreneurship could also be a Science!

I am still learning, and I will always be. Looking ahead, I want to pair my technical expertise with my entrepreneurial drive to build the technology ventures of the future that will improve human lives on Earth.

Below, you can see the video of one of the HIRMES telescope, a mission I worked while at the Astrophyisics Division at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. The HIRMES instrument is designed to be used on the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) airplane; a Boeing 747SP jet which has been modified to carry a 2.5 meter (100-inch) diameter telescope.

At NASA, I worked on two missions; the Balloon Experimental Twin Telescope for Infrared Interferometry (BETTII) and the High-resolution Mid-infrared Spectrometer (HIRMES). From 2014 through 2018 I was involved in many areas of the BETTII project. I led the development of the telemetry system used to download data from space and command the telescope, the attitude control system used to steer the telescope to desired target, and the temperature and power monitoring systems.

At HIRMES, I served as the Project Development Leader (PDL) for the mission, leading all the electrical related activities of the project, and coordinating the electrical efforts of a team of more than 40 scientists and engineers.

During my studies in France, at the Aeronautical University ISAE-Supaero, I was the Systems Engineering lead in a project that aimed to simulate an optical communications link between a ground station and a geostationary satellite. I also participated in an image processing project aimed to detect the outline of nearby objects for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV/Drones) in order to position themselves in the space. On the side, I have been developing the software infrastructure for a drone quadcopter (Phoenix) running on the atmega2560 microcontroller.

During the summers of my teenage years, as CEO of the travel agency Equitur I explored new horseback vacation programs to be sold in Spain . During these trips I also volunteered as a safari and horse-trails guide in countries such as South Africa, Botswana, Iceland, Tunisia and Ireland. I did equestrian reports about the programs and published them in various specialized horse magazines : Ecuestre and El Mundo del Caballo (South Africa) and Ecuestre (Tunisia).

Phoenix Drone Project

Safety

Calibration on each startup to assure maximum stability. Fly-home option when receiver out of range.

Software

100 % custom platform, with the abilitiy to add new sensors on demand.

Frame

3-D printed frame

Attitude Control Algorithm

Stable, quick reaction time, propellers controlled using hardware Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) signals(jitter-free)

Modes of Operation

Sport for those defying pilots wanting to do loopings or races. Relaxed for inexperienced pilots, assuring stability with low angular accelarations

System Monitoring

Battery status indicator, various LED & Telemetry downlink feed : PID filters output signals.

Download Source Code

Press

Resume

View résumé online

  • Work experience

  • Cofounder - Stealth Startup in the AL/ML space

    Palo Alto, California
    Coding hustling
      Details to come...

  • NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC): Astrophysics

    Astrophysics Science Division, GSFC - Washington, D.C.
    HIRMES: Project Development Leader (PDL)
      As PDL, the ultimate goal is ensuring the proper design, fabrication and integration of all the electrical components on HIRMES.
      Responsibilities include leading all electrical-related activities for a team of 40+ engineers and scientists at Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), and coordinating deliverables and HIRMES electrical system integration between the GSFC team and teams from other collaborating NASA centers, private companies and universities.
    BETTII: Lead Communications Engineer and Lead Space Systems Engineer
      Attitude control systems Lead Engineer, implemented the Pointing & Position Estimator Kalman Filter Algorithm running on FPGA that uses gyroscopes, accelerometers and other input sensors to command different actuators in order to point the telescope in space.
      Built a software and hardware testbed for the Telemetry System infrastructure.
      GPS system using the National Marine Electronics Association protocol (NMEA) , PCB Boards design, power distribution system, energy consumption and temperature monitoring systems, software for super-sensitive star detectors.
      Mentored several interns and graduate students.

  • Airbus - SUPAERO

    Institut Supérieur de l'Aéronautique et de l'Espace - Toulouse, France
    Aeronautical Engineering Student Trainee
      Image processing for Drones : Project based on the Söbel algorithm, which detects the outline of the drones’ nearby objects.
      Space - Earth optical communications link. Innovative project dealing with channel modeling, signal characterization, network architecture and Matlab simulation.

  • ATOS - Tempos21

    Barcelona, Spain
    Software Engineer
      Working at the Research & Development department under the international project ADAPTA evaluating the feasibility for android mobile applications to work with Linked Data

  • ATOS - London 2012 Olympic Games

    Barcelona, Spain
    Telecomunications Engineer Trainee
      Developed a complex android application for London 2012 Olympic Games. Ranked 4th out of 80 participants around the world.
      App based on a match-making geolocation chat. Java application coding, server coding, user interface design, business model, monetization of the idea and promotion.

  • Education

  • Master in Business Administration (Stanford MBA)

    Stanford Graduate School of Business - Palo Alto, USA

  • Aeronautical Engineering

    Institut Supérieur de l'Aéronautique et de l'Espace - Toulouse, France

    SUPAERO 3rd year graduate program

    Field of Study

      Space communications, satellite networks and embedded systems in airplanes.

    Extracurricular Activities

      Member of EUROAVIA, the European association of aerospace students.
      Member of the Table Tennis Team.
    Relevant Courses
      Robotics and UAV applications
      Satellite communications for aeronautical and mobile applications
      Sensors and actuators in embedded systems
      Satellite geographical positioning and navigation systems
      Avionics in embedded systems
      Space communication systems

  • MSc : Telecomunications Engineering

    Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC -ETSETB) - Barcelona, Spain

      Master Thesis with Honors (9.5/10): Telemetry System of the Balloon Experimental Twin Telescope for Infrared Interferometry (NASA)

    Extracurricular Activities

      Soccer, Volleyball
    Relevant Courses
      Optical communications
      Astronomy and radio astronomy
      Network architecture
      New-generation internet
      Cryptography and data transmission

  • BSc : Electrical Engineering

    Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC -ETSETB) - Barcelona, Spain

      Focused on Signal Processing, Radio communications, Telematics, Internet of Things, Optical Communications and Antennas

    Extracurricular Activities

      Member of the of Academic Committee of Evaluation of the Telecommunication Engineering School.
      Member of Aucoop, University association dedicated to cooperation and development of technology in rural areas. Participating in a project to install Wi-Fi repeaters in México and Bolivia.
    Relevant Courses
      Radio communications (GSM & CDMA)
      Communication modulations
      Circuit theory
      Electronic instrumentation
      Emitters and receivers

Skills

Space Systems

Attitude control mechanisms
85%
Communications
75%
LabVIEW Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA)
95%

Programming

Java
70%
C/C++
60%
AVR microcontrollers
65%

Knowledge of ...

  • Microcontrollers : Registers, Timers & Interrupts, Fast PWM
  • Quadcopter stabilization, i2c protocol, ESC flashing & brushless motors
  • Astronomy & Radioastronomy
  • Fiber optics & Photonics
  • Telescopes
  • GSM, CDMA, 3G, LTE protocols
  • n-QAM, AM, FM, PWM, PPM Modulations
  • Signal processing & Filters
  • Electromagnetic fields and wave radiation
  • Analog & Digital circuit design
  • Time & Frequency domains
  • Arduino IDE
  • Serial & Bluetooth communications
  • Electrical laboratory equipment

Languages

Spanish

Native

Catalan

Native

English

Fluent

French

Fluent

Italian

Basic

Hobbies

  • Design and build drones
  • Travel
  • Sports: Horse Riding, Soccer & Tennis
  • Piano

6

Years of work experience

8

Projects

8

Years of education

32

Age

Contact

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