Austin Lu

Austin Lu

Co-founder and CTO
@ PermitSight

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A list of all the posts and pages found on the site. For you robots out there, there is an XML version available for digesting as well.

Under construction!

      <p class="page__date">
        <strong><i class="fa fa-fw fa-briefcase" aria-hidden="true"></i> Employer: </strong> 
          Coohom
        <br/>
        <strong><i class="fa fa-fw fa-calendar" aria-hidden="true"></i> Date: </strong> 
          May 2018 - Aug 2018
        <br/>
        <strong><i class="fa fa-fw fa-city" aria-hidden="true"></i> Location: </strong> Shanghai, China
      </p>
    <!-- <p> <i>Coohom (Internship)</i>, 2018 - Current </p> -->
    


<p class="archive__item-excerpt" itemprop="description"><p>Contributed to frontend and backend development for a high-growth SaaS interior design platform, focusing on UI/UX improvements and automation scripts for localization.</p>

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Project Lead & Instructor

Employer: Technology Entrepreneur Center
Date: Aug 2021 - May 2023
Location: Champaign, IL, USA

Led technical instruction and mentorship for over 20 undergraduates in the Developing Breakthrough Projects course, guiding teams through hands-on product development in machine learning, robotics and data science.

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Full Stack Engineer

Employer: KK Stevens Publishing Co
Date: Jan 2023 - Jun 2023
Location: Astoria, IL, USA

Architected a modern web-based enterprise application to replace legacy management information systems, working closely with stakeholders to optimize business processes and improve operational efficiency.

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Project Lead & Mentor

Employer: Undergraduate Research in Scientific Advancement
Date: Dec 2024 - Jan 2024
Location: Champaign, IL, USA

Drove a team of undergraduate researchers in developing novel signal processing applications for robotics, providing technical mentorship and professional development guidance throughout the year-long program.

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Research Assistant

Employer: University of Illinois
Date: Aug 2024 - May 2025
Location: Champaign, IL, USA

Developed multimodal AI algorithms and multi-robot orchestration systems for the Singer Research Group, authoring publications across augmented reality, robotics, and multimodal AI.

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Co-founder & Chief Technology Officer

Employer: PermitSight
Date: Jun 2025 - Current
Location: Dallas, TX, USA

As the co-founder and CTO, I lead the technical vision and AI research. Our mission is to deploy sophisticated agentic systems that modernize the administrative backbone of American cities, turning complex regulatory data into actionable municipal intelligence

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projects

Applied R&D: Generative AI for Domain-Specific Data

Completed:

A strategic R&D initiative that pioneered the use of diffusion models to generate high-fidelity synthetic data for complex engineering systems, creating a new paradigm for digital simulation and AI training.

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Agentic AI for Civic Navigation

Completed:

Engineered an end-to-end agentic architecture, including streaming conversation flows and custom DOM-level perception for dynamic web environments.

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publications

Mechatronic Generation of Datasets for Acoustics Research

Published: May 2022
Venue: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)

This paper presents a mechatronic system designed to generate large-scale dynamic datasets for acoustics research, facilitating the development and evaluation of acoustic signal processing algorithms.

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A. Lu, E. Moore, A. Nallanthighall, K. Sarkar, M. Mittal, R.M. Corey, A.C. Singer, "Mechatronic Generation of Datasets for Acoustics Research," 2022 International Workshop on Acoustic Signal Enhancement (IWAENC), 2022, pp. 1-5.
Download Paper

Bandwidth extension with air and body-conduction microphones for speech enhancement

Published: Mar 2023
Venue: American Institute of Physics (AIP)

This study explores the use of air and body-conduction microphones to enhance speech by extending bandwidth, aiming to improve speech quality in various applications.

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A. Lu, M. Mittal, K. Sarkar, R.M. Corey, P. Smaragdis, A.C. Singer, "Bandwidth extension with air and body-conduction microphones for speech enhancement," The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, vol. 153, no. 3_supplement, pp. A51-A51, 2023.
Download Paper

Mechanized acoustic panels for variable reverb control

Published: Mar 2023
Venue: American Institute of Physics (AIP)

This study introduces mechanized acoustic panels capable of adjusting reverb characteristics in a room, offering dynamic control over acoustic environments.

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A. Nallanthighall, A. Lu, K. Sarkar, M. Mittal, A.C. Singer, "Mechanized acoustic panels for variable reverb control," The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, vol. 153, no. 3_supplement, pp. A220-A220, 2023.
Download Paper

3D-printed acoustic head simulators that talk and move

Published: Mar 2023
Venue: American Institute of Physics (AIP)

This paper presents 3D-printed acoustic simulators capable of speech and movement, serving as tools for testing and developing audio equipment and AI.

</p>

X. Yue, A. Nallanthighall, M. Mittal, A. Lu, K. Sarkar, R.M. Corey, P. Smaragdis, A.C. Singer, "3D-printed acoustic head simulators that talk and move," The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, vol. 153, no. 3_supplement, pp. A38-A38, 2023.
Download Paper

Source separation using bandlimited external microphones and a microphone array

Published: Mar 2023
Venue: American Institute of Physics (AIP)

This research explores source separation techniques employing bandlimited external microphones in conjunction with a microphone array to improve separation performance.

</p>

M. Mittal, K. Sarkar, A. Lu, R.M. Corey, A.C. Singer, "Source separation using bandlimited external microphones and a microphone array," The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, vol. 153, no. 3_supplement, pp. A52-A52, 2023.
Download Paper

Frame-by-frame mixture of beamformers for source separation

Published: Oct 2023
Venue: American Institute of Physics (AIP)

This paper proposes a novel approach to source separation by combining multiple beamformers on a frame-by-frame basis, enhancing the separation of concurrent sound sources.

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M. Mittal, K. Sarkar, A. Lu, R. Corey, A. Singer, "Frame-by-frame mixture of beamformers for source separation," Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics, vol. 51, no. 1, pp. 050007, 2023.
Download Paper

Delay-constrained hearing aid speech enhancement using a wireless remote microphone

Published: Mar 2024
Venue: American Institute of Physics (AIP)

This research addresses the challenge of speech enhancement in hearing aids by utilizing a wireless remote microphone, focusing on minimizing delay to improve user experience.

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A. Lu, Y. Zhuang, R.M. Corey, A.C. Singer, "Delay-constrained hearing aid speech enhancement using a wireless remote microphone," The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, vol. 155, no. 3_Supplement, pp. A42-A42, 2024.
Download Paper

Automating acoustic signal processing experiments and audio machine learning datasets using robots

Published: Dec 2024
Venue: University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

This thesis presents comprehensive research on automating acoustic signal processing experiments and generating audio machine learning datasets using robotic systems.

</p>

A. Lu, "Automating acoustic signal processing experiments and audio machine learning datasets using robots," Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2024.
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Denoising bandwidth extension via fusion of air and bone microphones

Published: May 2025
Venue: American Institute of Physics (AIP)

This research explores denoising and bandwidth extension techniques using the fusion of air and bone microphones for improved audio quality.

</p>

A. Lu, K. Sarkar, M. Mittal, R.M. Corey, P. Smaragdis, A.C. Singer, "Denoising bandwidth extension via fusion of air and bone microphones," Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics, vol. 51, no. 1, pp. 050010, 2023.
Download Paper

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