This page is a catalog of the work that I have done through various clubs, internships and research projects.  All documents come in a pdf format.

Masters Thesis

My Masters thesis title is: Control and Convolutional Neural Net Based Pose
Estimation for On-Orbit Assembly. On-orbit assembly is how we build things in space. This is more difficult in space, because we don’t have a common ground to build on, and we also don’t have a common reference point to call up and down for each piece in space. My thesis serves to answer three questions:

• How would the pieces assemble together?
• How would they control their motion?
• How would they verify their orientation?

The full thesis and other academic publications can be found on my Publications page.

NanoRacks

At NanoRacks, I built a 1.5U (15cm x 10cm x 10cm) NanoLab to test the effectiveness of dental fillers in space as part of the Guardians of the Galaxy Space Station Challenge. I used SolidWorks to create the design and worked with a local dentist to obtain the teeth and shape them accordingly. The attached presentation was given to the Challenge winner as an update of the progress made on the payload. After this presentation, we completed some of the necessary verification tests together, including curing the resin in a sample mold. The file is available for download: NanoRacks Presentation

The Aerospace Corporation

Unfortunately due to the nature of the work at the Aerospace Corporation, I am unable to directly share what I worked on. However, here is a related sample of my work. I helped with this report by updating the information on current small satellites and providing further analysis on the future of the small satellite market. The presentation file is available for download here: Work Sample Presentation

Space Flight Projects Laboratory Research

As part of the Space Flight Projects Lab, I collaborated with McClain Goggin in his Masters thesis. His research focuses on developing passively safe rendezvous trajectories for Martian Sample Return.  For this research, I determined the proper sensors needed to properly assess the attitude and distance of the target satellite.  I utilized image processing to recognize features on an image, determine the noise, and estimate the distance. My research paper on my semester progress can be found here: Research Paper.

IARC Aerial Robotics Research

At the end of the semester, I wrote a report on the algorithms I developed to overlay the RSSI data onto the Real-Time Appearance Based Map (RTAB-Map). This report also discusses the information I learned about the Robot Operating System (RoS). My final report can be found here: IARC Report

Flight Transportation Research

I worked under Professor Sun from August 2017 to May 2018 on flight transportation management. As part of the research, I developed a probability model to determine the likelihood of aircraft departure delay for different factors including airline, day, airport, weather pattern and region. I presented my research at the AIAA Region III Student Conference. The paper can be found here: Manuscript

Senior Design Capstone Project

During my senior year, I led a team of 9 students as the Mission Systems Lead for our class wide Senior Design Capstone Project. The purpose of our project was to design a system of drones that could survey Mars. As Mission Systems Lead, I developed what the overall mission design would look like. I calculated various trajectories to determine possible mission timelines. Furthermore, I researched different search and rescue flight path algorithms to recommend potential flight paths and roles for the drones. In addition to these technical contributions, I also regularly met with other team leads, and my teammates. I oversaw all of our presented materials, and reviewed our technical documentation to ensure that the team was integrated with other groups properly throughout the semester. Our class wide report can be found here:  Report.

Introduction to Aerospace Design

In my sophomore year, I collaborated with a group of 3 other students to develop a design for an air-launched rocket system. The purpose of the system was to deliver humanitarian aid and military supplies to areas with limited access. The aircraft could launch from any Air Force Base in the country and deliver the rocket to 500 nautical miles off the coast. The two stage rocket was capable of carrying a payload of 2000 kilograms to a polar orbit in LEO. I mainly helped design the rocket by writing code to optimize the mass budget. More information can be found here: Technical Report