Paul Sampson Email and Phone Number

Continued work on Resilient Autonomy (RA) started under Jacobs. Wrote software to interface with XPlane 11 and simulate flight test conditions due to base shutdown during COVID; this led to the project being one of very few to continue receiving Department of Defense funding. Successfully demonstrated autonomous air and ground collision avoidance, flight path following, fault detection, emergency landing, and task prioritization in a simulated high-risk environment. RA was presented to the Secretary of Defense. After vaccinated individuals were approved to work on base, I began working on installing and testing our software on two custom HQ-90 VTOL testbeds, one of which will be delivered to US SOUTHCOM.

Designed and wrote software for a project developing resilient autonomy for autonomous aircraft, incorporating ground and air collision avoidance systems. Interpreted high-level requirements into weekly tasks using agile scrum methodology, and implemented these tasks in C++ in accordance with object-oriented programming and software pattern standards. In addition, created unit tests to ensure adherence to each requirement. Utilized multi-monitor runtime assurance architecture.

Tested, debugged, and documented an algorithm to compress DTED terrain elevation data. This documentation was then used to release the algorithm to a private company through NASA's technology transfer process. I also worked on a general aviation autonomy project that used the algorithm for ground collision avoidance. The original algorithm was written in MATLAB, and the autonomy code was written in C++ in a Linux environment.

At 906 Technologies, I was part of a team that developed a website for clinics and hospitals across the Upper Peninsula. The website was designed to be the single solution for all a clinic's personnel needs. As such, it had complex and varied functionality. My main contributions were in the patient record and billing sections. Creating and modifying these sections required knowledge of HTML, CSS, PHP, and JavaScript, as well as SQL database manipulation.

Increased the efficiency of a signal compression algorithm used in NASA's next-generation fiber optic sensing system. The algorithm used wavelet transforms to process UV frequency data from a cable into position data, showing where the cable was under tension. This algorithm originally ran on a single core, but was changed to use multiple cores in parallel, increasing its speed by over seventy percent. The code was written in C in a Linux environment.

At OWL Computing, I created an app that remotely unlocked doors at the company office. This app was used by the employees to enter the office without passing out keys and creating security risks. This app is detailed below; in short, it consisted of an Arduino wired to an electronic door lock. The Arduino was connected to a server which processed requests the app. If a user had the correct permissions, the server sent a signal to the Arduino, which unlocked the door.