Michael Petelle Scherer

L3Harris C-Worker 4

Image Credit: L3Harris

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Udacity Self-Driving Car Nanodegree

The Self-Driving Car Nanodegree covers a broad range of topics to build autonomous cars. Including:

• Perception
• Object Detection
• Semantic Segmentation
• LIDAR and RADAR Fusion
• Localization
• Extended Kalman Filters
• Unscented Kalman Filters
• Particle Filter
• Control
• PID
• Model Predictive Control (MPC)
• Path Planning
• End to End Neural Networks
• ... and More

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SonarPhony

There aren't any available commercial options for open source fish finders on the market today. There are depth sounders that provide standardized interfaces (e.g. NMEA0183 or NMEA2000), but none which provide the full water column. The nature of the network interface for Vexilar's SonarPhone series made it a perfect candidate to reverse-engineer.

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FPAC

There is a steep learning curve for sequencers and mission planners to create mission plans for landing and driving robotic vehicles on current text-driven interfaces. Touch screen interfaces are quickly growing in popularity as a means to effectively and intuitively interact with computers and robotic systems. Future Prototype Assessment for Cockpit 2.0 (FPAC) is designed as a system for assessing the effectiveness of various touch-based paradigms for mission planning and sequence development. Operations for approach, landing and investigation of near-earth objects (NEOs) with the ATHLETE platform are chosen as the use case for this system. Scientists, engineers, and other mission-planning roles are the primary audience for FPAC. Usability and training minimalization are the primary metrics for this system, in order to optimize the workflow of sequencers and mission planners. Flexible touch-based camera controls, interactive timeline, sequence comparison options, and 3DConnexion SpaceBall integration are all included features in the assessment package.

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AUTOMATON

AUTOMATON was designed to compete in the 19th annual Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition in Rochester, Michigan. In this competition, the vehicle must fully autonomously navigate an obstacle course, locating waypoints and remaining within lane lines.

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Boatname the Brave

Designed for competition in the 2010 and 2011 RoboBoat competitions, Boatname the Brave is a fully autonomous surface vehicle (ASV). The vehicle, in addition to the sensor listed below, featured a water cannon, dual differential Crust Crawler 3-phase thrusters, and a swinging arm.

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Telesurgery

Created a simulator for interactions using a robotic arm in high delay. The robot could be operated with a Novint Falcon, a 3DOF conroller with full 3D haptic feedback

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KnightBright

Created for the 2010 IEEE SoutheastCon Hardware Competition, KnightBright is a fully autonomous solar powered vehicle. The robot was not allowed to have any stored energy before the start of the competition and could only derive energy from four 400 Watt lamps positioned around the course.

Because the light sources were suspended at a fixed distance from the ground, a scissor-lift was designed to elevate the solar panels closer to the source, thereby increasing the amount of energy harvested while decreasing the number of panels required. This had the unfortunate consequence of cooking some of the panels (as shown in the picture). The panels were hooked in parallel to a large bank of capacitors, whose voltage was monitored by the microcontroller on board. After passing a threshold (or exceeding a timeout), the microcontroller would drive the robot away from the light source and towards the wall. From there, a PID controller was used to align the robot with the wall using the two flex sensors. These sensors would also detect when a corner was reached, so that the vehicle could perform a turning maneuver.

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Krewe de Canailles

Krewe de Canailles celebrated yardigras in 2021 during the pandemic! The theme for the event was "Oh the places we didn't go".

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