Atlanta's Autonomy & Technology Consultant

2016-2020

Innovative UAV design & control

Fueled by our passion for engineering and innovation, we have explored a variety of flying platform designs.

In particular, as one of NASA X-Factor Innovations semifinalists, and in collaboration with Aurora Flight Sciences, we developed and demonstrated a UAV system that would provide micro-gravity conditions at a fraction of the cost of existing methods.

We have also explored and build prototypes for novel UAV designs, like a bladeless drone as part of a consulting contact with Aeolus Inc, and a thrust vectoring bi-rotor as part of a research project with Georgia Tech Research Institute.

2017-2021

Development Tools & Embedded Systems

With the ever increasing complexity of robotic systems, having the right tools to develop and iterate quickly is paramount. To that end, we developed a generic a multi-layered embedded platform that can easily interface with most hardware architectures available. This embedded platform is empowered by a custom software stack and set of tools, allowing developers to efficiently design, deploy, test, and debug their code.

Accompanying this embedded platform, we also develop a set of system identification hardware and software tools. This tools allow engineers to characterize mass and inertial properties of rigid bodies, as well as electric engine dynamic characteristics, and UAV propellers thrust and torque profiles.

2015-present

Safety critical control

Safety is arguably one of the most critical issues hindering the democratization of autonomous systems. We have therefore explored theoretical and algorithmic approaches to help design and build safer systems.

In particular, we developed a generic safety critical control and planning framework that we demonstrated in a multitude of relevant context and robots:

• Air, Land and Sea Vehicles
• Industrial manipulators
• Exoskeletons

2017-2019

Bipedal locomotion

Bipedal locomotion is one of the most challenging fields in robotics, but also one of the most relevant. As part of our team’s continuous efforts to push back the technological boundaries of our generation, we have made contributions in the field of legged locomotion.

In collaboration with industrial and academic partners, we developed stable dynamic walking algorithms, as well as a novel framework for variable assistance on lower body exoskeletons, both of which were extensively tested on exoskeletons, bipedal, and quadruped robots.

2019-2022

Intelligence on the water

In recent years, we have seen a great push in electrification, connectivity, and autonomy in the automotive industry. Although this push has spread to other industries, the leisure boating industry is still very much behind despite it’s huge business potential and favorable legislative landscape. Recognizing this opportunity, fate led us to develop skills and form the one and only Yamaha Motor Marine Autonomy Division, where we developed a technology demonstrator of what the boat of tomorrow will look like.

Going from ideas to a demo-ready prototype in a year and a half, we single handedly built a state-of-the-art development platform, on which we developed autonomy, connectivity, UI, and safety features.