Sebastian
Rojas-Ordoñez

AI & Robotics Researcher | PhD Researcher in Control, Automation & Robotics

Embedded Systems, Digital Twins, ROS 2, FMI & Edge AI

Experience & Education

Academic background and industrial research path.

PhD in Control, Automation & Robotics
Universidad del País Vasco (UPV/EHU)
Jan 2025 – Present
Research focusing on advanced control architectures, digital twins, and AI edge inference for autonomous systems.
PhD Researcher
IKERLAN S.COOP · Donostia-San Sebastian
Aug 2024 – Present
Focuses on robotics, embedded systems, and open interoperability standards for industrial cyber-physical systems. Contributing to R&D projects like Elkartek AUTOTRUST and SENDOA.
M.Sc. Mechatronics, Robotics & Automation
Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences
Feb 2024 – Sep 2024
Erasmus Mundus Master's (EU4M). Specialized in automation engineering, system integration, and advanced robotics control.
Research Intern (Master Thesis)
IKERLAN S.COOP
Feb 2024 – Jul 2024
Master thesis research on IKSAFECOLAB: A safety and collaborative robotic system architecture for industrial research.

Selected Publications

Research contributions in peer-reviewed journals and conferences.

Cognitive Digital Twins for Autonomous Robotics
In Preparation for: Autonomous Robots (Springer) — Q1 Journal

Systematic review of 121 studies establishing a unified framework for integrating Cognitive Digital Twins in autonomous robotic systems, focusing on robust localization, navigation, and manipulation architectures.

In Preparation Robotics Digital Twins
Plug-and-Play LLM Knowledge Extraction for Robot Navigation
Machine Learning and Knowledge Extraction — Feb 2026

A fine-tuning-free edge framework leveraging Large Language Models (LLMs) deployed on resource-constrained embedded systems (NVIDIA Jetson) to enhance autonomous robot navigation using zero-shot prompt engineering.

Published Edge AI LLMs
Natural-Language Relay Control for a SISO Thermal Plant
Applied Sciences — Dec 2025

A proof-of-concept architecture with validation against a conventional hysteresis controller, demonstrating the viability of LLM-based intelligent relay control in cyber-physical thermal systems.

Published Control Systems

Technical Expertise & Projects

Key areas of development and system architectures.

Digital Twin Autonomy Stack

Bridging FMI/Modelica simulation with ROS 2 deployment and safety-aware policies for industrial applications.

FMI/FMUROS 2Co-sim
Edge AI Perception (ONNX)

Low-latency inference pipelines optimized for Jetson-class hardware, directly integrated as ROS 2 nodes.

ONNXJetsonVision
Robust Localization Pipeline

VIO/LIO/SLAM robustness strategies with system-level arbitration for highly dynamic environments.

VIOLIOSLAM