NIKHIL CHHETRI
Nikhil Chhetri · Developer & Robotics Enthusiast

I BUILD THINGS THAT MOVE, THINK & CONNECT.

Frontend / Full-Stack Developer · AI & Robotics Enthusiast

From responsive web applications to autonomous ground robotics, I use modern AI tooling and code as force multipliers to build things that actually work.

BANGALORE, INDIA · 12.9716° N, 77.5946° E
SCROLL TO EXPLORE ↓
01 /EXPERIMENTS & PROTOTYPES

BUILDER'S LAB

Active prototypes, hardware integrations, and software experiments currently in progress.

01

AUTONOMOUS UGV

BUILDING
Flow:CAMERA → PERCEPTION → DECISION → MOTOR
ROS 2·Computer Vision·Raspberry Pi·ESP32·Gazebo

Outdoor vision-based autonomous navigation stack for an Unmanned Ground Vehicle under real physical constraints.

Integrating Nav2 pure pursuit controllers, differential PWM drive, and edge OpenCV contour analysis. Built for Smart India Hackathon 2025.

Execution Mode
Hands-On Prototyping
THE REAL STACK

“MY FAVORITE STACK ISN'T JUST A TECHNOLOGY STACK.”

Problem+Curiosity+Terminal+AI+
A RIDICULOUS AMOUNT OF DEBUGGING.
THE PHILOSOPHY: FORCE MULTIPLIERS IN ACTIONCuriosity + Terminal + AI + Deep Understanding
01 ROBOTICS / NAVIGEN02 THE STACK / TOOLS

From physical motor loops to the software stack that drives them.

Hardware, sensors, and firmware connect into languages, libraries, and architecture.

02 /TOOLS & ARCHITECTURAL CONCEPTS

TOOLS I BUILD WITH

An exploratory matrix. Verified technologies are marked as “Used in”, active builds as “BUILDING”, and research horizons as “EXPLORING” or “PLANNED”.

BUILD

React.js

Used in
Connection Flow:
React.js
USED IN
LPG Gas Leakage Dashboard & Pulse component state
Verified Projects / Environments:
LPG Gas Leakage DashboardPulse (Planned)
02 THE STACK02 AI AGENTS / FORGE

From writing code manually to orchestrating agents in the terminal.

Developer tooling and AI workflows act as force multipliers for rapid prototyping.

02 / AI ENGINEERING / DEVELOPER TOOL
BUILDING

FORGE

AI Software Engineering Agent

“From task to tested code — directly from the terminal.”
WORKFLOW PIPELINE·Interactive State Inspector
STAGE 02: PLAN
PLAN:Breaks a developer request into smaller implementation steps.
ACTIVE CORE
* Authenticity Note: Test & debug loops are actively in development; review loop is planned.
WHY I BUILT FORGE

“I wanted to explore what happens when AI becomes part of the software engineering workflow itself — not just a chatbot that answers questions, but a tool that can inspect a codebase, break down a task, work with developer tools, and help move an idea toward working software.”

AI as a force multiplier · Grounded developer tooling
WHAT I'M EXPLORING
Active Learning Focus
AI AGENTS
MULTI-AGENT WORKFLOWS
TOOL CALLING
AUTOMATION
TERMINAL / CLI
DEVELOPER TOOLING

Areas actively explored and built hands-on — zero exaggerated claims.

forge — zsh — 80×24
BUILDING
$forge "add authentication"
FORGE
──────────────────────────────────────
Planning task
Inspecting repository
Preparing changes
Running tests
[IN DEVELOPMENT]
Reviewing changes
[PLANNED]
› [TRACE]Drafting minimal, structured patch chunks adhering to local coding patterns.
Tactile CLI EngineForce Multiplier · Not a chatbot
Verified Stack:CLI ToolingTypeScriptNode.jsAI/LLM APIsGit
Repository in Private DevelopmentGitHub Profile
02 DEVELOPER CLI / FORGE03 REAL-TIME PRODUCT / PULSE

From single-developer tools to real-time multiplayer products.

Where multiple people, shared state, and live synchronization meet.

03 /PULSE / BUILDING
BUILDINGConcept / active build

PULSE

ILLUSTRATIVE PROTOTYPE

Real-Time Collaborative Workspace

“Work together. See everything.”

I'm exploring how real-time state, collaboration, and thoughtful product design come together in a full-stack application.

PULSE/Workspace/NAVIGEN
ILLUSTRATIVE · Concept Prototype
Sync Channel: Active (WS #navigen-live)
ACTIVE NOW
2 Present (ILLUSTRATIVE)
N
NikhilHost
Editing Navigation Plan
C
CollaboratorReviewer
Reviewing Camera Pipeline
* Ephemeral presence detection mockup — ILLUSTRATIVE prototype.
Simulate Mutation:ILLUSTRATIVE EVENT
WORKSPACE VIEWS
PROJECT TASKS
Sprint: SIH 2025 Milestones
Camera Integration
V4L2 OpenCV stream with edge thresholding
REVIEW
Navigation Pipeline
Pure pursuit waypoint planner & obstacle avoidance
BUILDING
Motor Control
ESP32 differential PWM driver with hardware failsafe
DONE
02:41·Task moved: REVIEW BUILDING
Event broadcasted · 24ms
AI ACTIVITY DIGEST
PLANNED CAPABILITY
“Summarize what changed in this project this week.”
Completed
3 tasks
In Review
2 tasks
Blockers
0 reported
Most Active
Nav Pipeline
THE ARCHITECTURAL MOTIVATION

WHY I'M BUILDING PULSE

“I wanted to build something that goes beyond traditional CRUD applications and forces me to think about what happens when multiple people interact with the same product at the same time.”

STATE
Optimistic & Local
SYNCHRONIZATION
Delta Diff Pub/Sub
PRESENCE
Live Focus Roster
DATABASES
Relational Persistence
REAL-TIME EVENTS
Sub-50ms Broadcast
PRODUCT UX
Effortless Flow
SYSTEM DESIGN

FULL-STACK ARCHITECTURE

PLANNED ARCHITECTURE · EXPLORING
01
USER
Browser Client / Multi-Device UI
02
NEXT.JS / REACT
Optimistic UI, React Server Components
03
API / SERVER
Node.js Edge Handlers & Authentication
04
REAL-TIME LAYER
WebSocket Gateway & Pub/Sub Events
05
DATABASE
Postgres / Relational Schema & Audits
06
COLLABORATIVE STATE
Shared Synchronized Room Data
* Authenticity Note: Pulse is currently in design and prototyping; technologies and architecture represent planned engineering choices rather than production deployments.
THE ENGINEERING FRONTIER

THE 5 CHALLENGES OF REAL-TIME

What actually happens between two keyboards separated by hundreds of miles.

01
STATE

What happens when application state changes?

Optimistic updates & local mutation buffers
Every user action triggers state mutations. In a multiplayer canvas, local state must be treated as optimistic and reconcile immediately without awaiting network roundtrips.
02
SYNCHRONIZATION

How does another client learn about that change?

WebSocket pub/sub & delta diff broadcasting
03
PRESENCE

How do users know who else is active?

Heartbeat pings, live focus & ephemeral state
04
CONFLICTS

What happens when two people change the same thing?

Deterministic conflict resolution (LWW / CRDT)
05
EXPERIENCE

How do we make all of this feel instant?

Sub-50ms perceived latency & zero-distraction UX
THE COLLABORATION PARADOX

“The hard part isn't making data move. It's making collaboration feel effortless.

03 REAL-TIME STATE / PULSE04 KNOWLEDGE SYSTEMS / ATLAS

From synchronizing live state to grounding answers in evidence.

Turning scattered documents into traceable, verifiable intelligence.

04 /AI / RAG / KNOWLEDGE SYSTEMS
BUILDINGCONCEPT · ARCHITECTURE PROTOTYPE

ATLAS

KNOWLEDGE WORKSPACE

Turn scattered knowledge into answers you can trace.

“The interesting part isn't generating an answer. It's knowing where that answer came from.”

A knowledge workspace exploring document ingestion, semantic retrieval, grounded generation, and evidence-first answers. Building systems that refuse to guess when they can verify.

FLOW /RETRIEVAL & GROUNDING PIPELINE
STAGE 05:RETRIEVE
RETRIEVE:Cosine Search

Query vector matched against passage index using nearest-neighbor similarity ranking.

Top-k nearest neighbor match
ATLAS/Workspace/Grounded Knowledge Base
CONCEPT / BUILDING · SIMULATED RETRIEVAL
KNOWLEDGE BASE
5 DOCS
Document Inspector:
01_UGV_Architecture_Spec.pdf
Size: 248 KBSIH 2025 Spec
Sensor loopHardware constraintsPWM drive
ASK ATLAS
ILLUSTRATIVE QUERY
INPUT QUERYSimulated prompt

What are the important hardware and processing constraints in the system?

GROUNDED GENERATION
Evidence-bounded context

The primary physical constraint is processing capacity on the single-board edge processor [01]. Running full-resolution raw camera frames alongside ROS 2 nodes causes memory bus saturation. Consequently, frame capture must be cropped to the ground path ahead of the drive wheels [02], and edge motor control loops must fall back to emergency stop if telemetry pings drop for more than 500ms [03].

Source Citations:
GROUNDED EVIDENCE
VERIFIED CHUNK
SOURCE DOCUMENT

01_UGV_Architecture_Spec.pdf

chunk_03_p4
Reference: Section 2.4 / Page 4similarity · ~0.93 (illustrative)

The Raspberry Pi 4 edge compute budget is strictly bounded to 30 FPS at 640x480 resolution to reserve CPU overhead for the Nav2 local planner and differential wheel drive.

Attribution Mechanics:

Every claim is mapped deterministically to chunk character offsets. Zero ungrounded synthesis is permitted into the output payload.

RESEARCH /KNOWLEDGE SYSTEMS ARCHITECTURE
Concepts actively explored & prototyped · Zero inflated claims

Document Ingestion

EXPLORING

Parsing varied formats (PDF, Markdown, text) into clean normalized text streams.

Chunking Strategies

EXPLORING

Evaluating fixed-size token windows vs semantic sentence and paragraph splitting.

Embeddings & Vectors

EXPLORING

Understanding dense representations and mathematical cosine distance mapping.

Semantic Retrieval

EXPLORING

Combining keyword BM25 with vector similarity for hybrid document search.

Vector Search Concepts

PLANNED

Researching index structures like HNSW for fast k-nearest-neighbor lookups.

Context Construction

BUILDING

Budgeting prompts with only the highest-scoring chunks to avoid context dilution.

Grounded Generation

BUILDING

Constraining synthesis strictly to provided evidence passages with zero extrapolation.

Source Attribution

BUILDING

Deterministic mapping from each output sentence back to verifiable chunk excerpts.

Authenticity Guardrail: Vector database embeddings and RAG retrieval pipelines in ATLAS are active local architectural explorations. No claims of production multi-million vector deployments or proprietary embedding models are made.
Architectural Focus:RAG PipelineSemantic ChunkingVector EmbeddingsContext BudgetingGrounded Evidence
Prototype in Active Research
04 KNOWLEDGE SYSTEMS / ATLAS05 DEVOPS & INFRASTRUCTURE / NEXUS

From asking what is true to understanding how software ships.

Connecting source code, automated gates, builds, and edge observability.

NARRATIVE BRIDGE / FORGE → NEXUS
LIFECYCLE CONTINUUM

“From writing code to understanding the system around it.”

Forge helps build software through terminal agent loops. Nexus helps understand, verify, and ship it through operational infrastructure.

FORGE / LOCAL AGENTWrite & Verify
TASKPLANINSPECTCODETESTREVIEW
How code gets written, inspected, and verified locally.
NEXUS / INFRASTRUCTUREShip & Observe
BUILDDEPLOYMONITORAUTOMATE
How code gets compiled, tested, deployed, and monitored globally.
05 /DEVOPS / AUTOMATION / DEVELOPER INFRASTRUCTURE
BUILDINGCONCEPT · ARCHITECTURE PROTOTYPE

NEXUS

OPERATIONAL CONTROL

From commit to deployment — see what happens in between.

“Building software isn't just writing lines in an editor. It's managing the entire machine that takes code to users.”

An exploration of developer infrastructure that connects source code, automated checks, builds, deployments, and project health in one place.

LIFECYCLE /OPERATIONAL PIPELINE STAGES
STAGE 03:BUILD
BUILD:Artifact Compilation

Executes Next.js Turbopack compiler, generates server bundles and static assets.

BUILD: ~42s (simulated)
NEXUS/Console/Project Health & Pipelines
CONCEPT / BUILDING · SIMULATED CI/CD
Active Target:
branch: main
REPOSITORYSYNCED
nikhil-portfolio
e8f2a1 · illustrative commit
feat(narrative): integrate ATLAS & NEXUS flagship systems
Author: Nikhil Chhetri12m ago
BUILD ENGINEPASSING ✓ (simulated)
~42s (simulated)
Artifact: ~142 KB gzip (simulated)
Turbopack compile · Clean cache
TEST RUNNER100% SUITE
48 passing
0 failing · 2 skipped
Run duration: ~3.4s (simulated)
DEPLOYMENTSIMULATED
Edge Runtime / Vercel (Simulated)
DEPLOYMENT: SIMULATED
Target: https://nikhil-portfolio-rose.vercel.app
CHRONOLOGICAL ACTIVITY STREAM
Simulated lifecycle events
18:45Edge CDN cache purge propagated across 18 edge POPs
DEPLOY · SIMULATED
18:44Deployment staged: verified zero-downtime routing
DEPLOY · SIMULATED
18:43Automated test suite finished: 48 passing · illustrative
TEST · SIMULATED
18:42Next.js Turbopack build finished in ~42s (simulated)
BUILD · SIMULATED
18:41Git push event triggered by nikhil on branch main
GIT · SIMULATED
AUTOMATION SENTINELS
ACTIVE RULES
Static Lint Gate
trigger: pre-commit
PASSING
TypeScript Strict Check
trigger: push:main
PASSING
Secret Leak Scan
trigger: pull_request
CLEAN
Automatic Rollback Sentinel
trigger: post-deploy
ARMED
Sentinel Goal:

Zero manual intervention required to prevent broken builds or leaked credentials from reaching remote environments.

DevOps Exploration:CI/CD PipelinesAutomated Lint & Test GatesTurbopack OptimizationEdge DeploymentsTelemetry Observability
Infrastructure Prototype in Active Research
SYNTHESIS·THE DUAL ARCHITECTURE
04 — ATLASINFORMATION
KNOWLEDGE → RETRIEVAL → EVIDENCE

Systems that turn scattered documents into verifiable answers you can trace.

05 — NEXUSSOFTWARE
CODE → BUILD → DEPLOY → OBSERVABILITY

Systems that take source code across automated gates into running infrastructure.

“Build systems that understand information and systems that understand software.”

One grounds intelligence in truth. The other grounds engineering in reliable pipelines.

Next: What happens when these systems fail?
04 /ENGINEERING AUTOPSY
Genuine Post-Mortems

THINGS THAT BROKE

“Building isn't a straight line.”

Every real project breaks during development. What matters isn't pretending things worked on the first try, but knowing how to inspect the failure, fix the root cause, and keep the lesson for the next build.

INCIDENT CASE STUDY · NAVIGEN UGV

Raspberry Pi Camera Stream Stutter

BUILT
01 — PROBLEM (What actually went wrong?)

When running OpenCV contour detection for obstacle segmentation alongside ROS 2 nodes on the Raspberry Pi 4, the camera feed stuttered significantly, introducing unacceptable navigation delays.

02 — INVESTIGATION (How did I figure it out?)

Monitored CPU load via htop during live runs. The Pi's CPU cores were maxed out because the camera node was capturing uncompressed high-resolution frames, causing memory bus bottlenecks before path planning even received the image.

03 — FIX (What did I change?)

Lowered the camera capture resolution in code, skipped redundant intermediate frames, and cropped the region of interest strictly to the ground path ahead of the UGV wheels.

04 — LESSON (What did I learn?)

On resource-constrained edge hardware, processing less data efficiently beats trying to optimize heavy computation.

05 /ACTIVE EXPLORATION
BUILDING · EXPLORING · LEARNING

BUILD NOTES

“Things I'm currently figuring out.”

Instead of a conventional biography, here is what I'm actively researching, testing, and figuring out across hardware, software, and real-time systems.

RESEARCH TOPIC

ROS 2 & Robotics

STATUS: BUILDING
CORE QUESTION

How do node lifecycles and DDS topics translate simulation into physical motors?

WHAT I'M ACTIVELY FIGURING OUT:
  • Exploring how Gazebo physical simulations translate to real-world ESP32 PWM motor drivers.
  • Figuring out Nav2 costmap inflation buffers and waypoint controllers for outdoor obstacles.
  • Testing publisher/subscriber QoS reliability over lossy edge Wi-Fi connections.
CURRENT TAKEAWAY:

Physical robots require planning for packet loss and latency at every node boundary.

05 /METHODOLOGY

HOW I BUILD

“I don't just write code. I use the tools around me to turn ideas into working products faster.”

STEP 01 IN PRACTICE

FIND THE PROBLEM: Understand what actually needs solving.

Before writing a line of code or wiring a breadboard, I pinpoint the core constraint — whether it's an autonomous ground vehicle navigating outdoor terrain or an IoT dashboard needing instant gas hazard alerts.

METHOD: VIBE & REFINE
STATUS: VELOCITY + CODE UNDERSTANDING
INDEX /FLAGSHIP SYSTEMS

THE FIVE FLAGSHIPS

BUILT & ACTIVE ARCHITECTURAL BUILDS
01/NAVIGEN
BUILT
Robotics & Perception Pipeline

Vision-based autonomous navigation for unmanned ground vehicles.

CAMERA → PERCEPTION → DECISION → MOTOR
ROS 2OpenCVRaspberry Pi
Explore
02/FORGE
BUILDING
AI Software Engineering Agent

CLI agent that plans, analyzes, codes, and verifies software with directory grounding.

TASK → PLAN → INSPECT → CODE → TEST → REVIEW
CLI ToolingTypeScriptNode.js
Explore
03/PULSE
BUILDING
Real-Time Collaborative Workspace

Multiplayer full-stack workspace exploring shared state, presence, and CRDT sync.

STATE → SYNC → PRESENCE → CONFLICTS
Next.jsReactWebSockets
Explore
04/ATLAS
BUILDING
AI / RAG / Knowledge Systems

A knowledge workspace exploring document ingestion, vector retrieval, and evidence-first answers.

DOCUMENTS → RETRIEVE → EVIDENCE
RAGEmbeddingsVector Search
Explore
05/NEXUS
BUILDING
DevOps / Automation / Infrastructure

Operational control connecting repositories, test gates, builds, deployments, and telemetry.

CODE → BUILD → DEPLOY → MONITOR
CI/CDTurbopackTest Gates
Explore
ADDITIONAL BUILD /REAL-TIME IOT & DASHBOARD

LPG GAS LEAKAGE DASHBOARD

“I turn real-world sensor data into usable interfaces.”

A real-time IoT dashboard designed to monitor LPG gas concentration and system status, providing an intuitive interface for gas readings, solenoid valve status, hazard alerts, and activity monitoring.

ReactViteTailwind CSSFirebaseRechartsFramer Motion
View Repository
MQ-6 TELEMETRY STREAM
SAFE
Gas Concentration184 PPM (18.4%)
Valve Status
OPEN / NORMAL
Database Sync
Firebase Live
Recent Log: Nominal baseline maintained. Zero hazard thresholds exceeded.
ARCHIVE /SOFTWARE & EXPERIMENTS
VERIFIED REPOSITORIES
Healthcare Technology

MedTech

A healthcare-focused technology project combining frontend and backend components to explore practical digital solutions for healthcare. Focuses on application architecture and structured data handling.

Frontend · Backend · DataRepository
Web Application UI

SaaS Dashboard

A dashboard-focused web application demonstrating modern UI development, responsive design and component-based application interfaces for clean data presentation.

Responsive UI · ComponentsRepository
Infrastructure & Workflow

DevOps

A project focused on exploring development workflows, version control best-practices, deployment concepts, and automation techniques.

Git · Deployment · AutomationRepository
06 /PRESSURE-TESTED BUILDING

BUILT UNDER PRESSURE.

“Hackathons taught me how to turn an idea into a prototype before the clock runs out.”

STAGE 01

College Technical Hackathons

Foundation Sprints
STAGE 02

Inter-College Hackathons

Competitive Arenas
STAGE 03

NASA Challenge Hackathon

Global Innovation
STAGE 04

Smart India Hackathon 2025

National Level Innovation
Project: NAVIGEN
Problem Statement:

Vision Based Autonomous Navigation for Unmanned Ground Vehicle for Outdoor Environment

Engineered NAVIGEN, an autonomous navigation stack for an Unmanned Ground Vehicle navigating outdoor environments using computer vision and edge microcontrollers.

Key Experiences & Learnings:
High-pressure hardware-software integration
Outdoor vision perception & real-time path planning
Sensor fusion with differential PWM motor drivers
Technologies:ROS 2PythonRaspberry PiESP32Computer VisionGazebo
08 /FOUNDATIONS & HORIZONS

EDUCATION & LEARNING

Academic theory paired with self-directed technical building.

CURRENT UNDERGRADUATEBangalore, India

Dayananda Sagar University (DSU)

Bachelor of Computer Applications (BCA)

Core coursework in computer applications, programming fundamentals, data structures, database management, web systems, and computational theory.

SCHOOL EDUCATIONFoundations

Delhi Public School (DPS)

School Education

Foundational schooling that built initial scientific inquiry, mathematics, and an abiding interest in technology and computer science.

What I'm Learning Now

Real Learning Status
Active Horizon · React.js:

Modern component state, client dashboards & responsive interfaces

DEVELOPER EASTER EGG · INTERACTIVE CLI
Type “help”
nikhil@ds-lab:~
nikhil@ds-lab:~$echo "keep building."
keep building.
nikhil@ds-lab:~$
Quick run:
09 /CONNECT

HAVE AN IDEA?
LET'S BUILD IT.

I'm open to interesting projects, hackathons, internships, freelance opportunities and collaborations.

Bangalore, India
EMAIL
nikhil142004@gmail.com
Write an email
GITHUB
github.com/nikhi20-900
View repositories
LINKEDIN
linkedin.com/in/nikhil-chhetri-115747284
Connect on LinkedIn