Manage the software engineering team while providing broader strategic leadership across the company. Work with product management, sales, and customers to understand market requirements and leverage my Lidar expertise to direct hardware, firmware, and software engineering in developing solutions for those requirements. My team of 30 globally distributed team members includes software and firmware quality assurance as well as software engineering and algorithm development. Define, schedule, and execute multiple software releases per year across the product portfolio including embedded software, server applications, and user interfaces. Applications include physical security, industrial automation, and flow management.

Led a team of 10 engineers driving core perception technology from early research through prototype software to proofs of concept. Built a flexible architecture of algorithms and software which now serves as the backbone of all software products allowing reuse and shared improvements across the product line. Created proofs of concept for security, industrial, and flow management applications leading to new business streams and expanded market reach. Developed a series of alpha releases of automotive perception software for demonstration.

Developed the core perception pipeline for the company’s Lidar sensors to perform real-time 3D mapping and object detection, tracking, and classification. Grew the software team while providing core leadership, architectural guidance, and Lidar expertise.

Worked with a small team to completely revamp the planning, control, and testing of NASA's second generation Robonaut. This included adding two 7 degree-of-freedom legs to a humanoid robot already consisting of 18 major degrees-of-freedom in addition to highly dexterous hands. Focused on the mid-level control framework including kinematics, dynamics, and trajectory planning as well as high-level application development. On a separate project, I developed a collection of tools to convert natural language project requirements into formal logic and verify the controller design. I developed a model definition schema, data structure, and parser that allows easy access to important model parameters by the various parts of the software.

Wrote and submitted many project proposals to NASA, CSA, DARPA, and DoD and served as project manager for winning proposals. Worked as an engineer on many additional projects in 3D computer vision and robotics. Projects included real-time convoy threat detection, object segmentation, object recognition, and autonomous navigation for commercial, space, and defense applications.

Developed analysis tools to help analysts quickly turn data collection into actionable intelligence for NASA’s return to flight after the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster using a laser triangulation scanning system for inspection of the Space Shuttle while on orbit. Led the testing and qualification of the system including reprogramming a 12 degree-of-freedom parallel robot to simulate orbital motion. Led real-time operations analysis for 15 Space Shuttle missions. Provided data to NASA on three missions that confirmed the safety of the orbiter.

Performed research and development in serial chain robot control. Performed core development on flexible robot control software. Applied advanced control to many robot configurations and implemented a variety of input devices for manual control of robots. Managed 15 students performing robotics software research. My thesis focused on software interface generation for robots using feature oriented analysis.

Over a summer internship, I worked on a couple of robotic control problems. I developed a C++ telerobotic controller for plasma torch cutting with a newly added tool on a Titan II robotic arm. This was an interesting problem taking advantage of a binary degree-of-freedom added to a typical 6 degree-of-freedom robot. I also took advantage of unimportant output degrees-of-freedom to make an underconstrained system. A separate project was to add intelligence to the Pit Viper System in use at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory for nuclear dismantlement. This system is a 6 degree-of-freedom robot mounted on the end of a backhoe.

As an undergraduate student, I taught a Statics and Strengths of Materials course for Sophomores. This included preparation of assignments, labs, and exams, and holding office hours for students.