Commercial Projects
Alongside my research work, I have also worked as a contract engineer on a range of design and development projects. These engagements involved the design of physical and embedded systems across multiple technical domains. While the contexts varied, they consistently required translating complex requirements into coherent system architectures and practical engineering solutions.
Miniature Smart Material Servohydraulic System
- Part of a team that developed a compact, high frequency, smart material driven servo hydraulic system. Design included a 200V driver for a piezo/capacitive load, command and feedback signal conditioning, and custom interface software to a COTS DSP controller.
- Designed, tested, fabricated, and installed the complete electrical system.
- Developed firmware and software for data acquisition and control implementation.
- Oversaw a successful flight test.
Self Contained Piezoelectric Control System
- Custom design integrated a COTS DSP controller, two channels of DC/DC power conversion, signal conditioning, linear amplification, and 500W of cooling in a compact, standalone package.
- Finished on schedule and within budget. Customer has experienced years of fail-free laboratory use and subsequently purchased two more units.
Power Electronics for Large Scale Hexapod
- Designed complete electrical cabinet for a large scale, high force, high bandwidth 6 DOF motion simulator utilizing voice coil actuators.
- Design included selection of appropriate current mode amplifiers, control computer, wiring, fusing, shutdown contacts, proper safety grounding, and cooling.
- Successfully passed all NRTL testing, customer has had years of fail-free use.
Active Vibration Cancellation System
- Designed active vibration cancellation system for a reciprocating saw.
- Reaction mass actuator mounted in a cross configuration to reduce vertical and horizontal vibration.
- Adaptive feedforward controller implemented on a DSP.
- Low profile control box included controller and switching amplifier.
High Pressure Thermal Bonding Tool
- Designed thermal bonding tool for optical multiplexer product.
- Heating element melted indium bead for final hermetic seal.
- Pressure and heating system were completely automated, initiated by a single button push from the user.
- Several configurations delivered and utilized in overseas production line.
Optical PCB Preparation Tool
- Designed an optical inspection station for a miniature PCB. Tool quantified cross coupling of optical axis for a micro switching mirror.
- The tool utilized a unique vacuum chuck that was highly repeatable and clean room compatible.
- Simple and robust, the fixture was subsequently incorporated into two other test and production tools.
Miniature Cam Driven Pump
- Designed and fabricated a miniature, cam driven diaphragm pump for a tire pressure regulation system.
- Developed a cam-profile generation algorithm which minimized torque ripple through the pumping cycle.
- Constructed a test bed for accelerated lifetime testing of the design prototype.
Ergonomic Optimization for Silicon Wafer Fabrication
- Working with industrial engineer; designed and fabricated mechanisms to increase productivity and reduce error within the silicon handling and recycling process.
- Fixtures included waste catch, media blaster trays, silicon brick handlers, overhead carriers, camera mounts.
- All fixtures designed and installed within operating production line with minimization of down time.