STAR

2001

FRED VASENIUS

Research Mentor: Dr. Pablo Sobron

Lab Site: SETI Institute

Lab Site Coordinator(s): Pamela Harman

Project Title: Design of compact lidar instrument for orbital measurements of climate change indicators

Project Summary: Assist Research Mentor (Pablo Sobron) with the development of a novel compact lidar for orbital measurements of climate change indicators under NASA SBIR-funded program (https://sbir.nasa.gov/SBIR/abstracts/21/sbir/phase1/SBIR-21-1-S1.01-2846.html).

Project Description: General Info: Weekly meetings with Pablo and Kirby (Systems Engineer); pending availability, bi-weekly meetings with Chris (Mechanical Engineer) to discuss mechanical design specifics or considerations; inclusion in project-specific meetings.

Month of June: Develop optomechanical design for Geospatial Rastering And Atmospheric Lidar (GRAAL). Design parts for prototyping that we can print/machine in-house to test. Kirby will assist in breadboarding components, providing feedback on design, etc. Work will include performing trade studies on components/designs. At the end of June, present an update to Pablo’s team on the work completed over the course of the month.

Month of July: Undergo vibration simulations/analysis of GRAAL design and begin investigating requirements for integration into airborne flight platform for demonstration. Kirby will assist in breadboarding components, providing feedback on design, etc. Work will include performing trade studies on design considerations to assess their vibrational performance and trade studies on design considerations related to integration or target tracking. At the end of July, present an update to Pablo’s team on the work completed over the course of the month.

Month of August: Finalize GRAAL optomechanical design and accommodation requirements for airborne platform. Compile and document work into a final report. Perform instrument renders in Solidworks or Fusion to be used in a Phase II proposal. At the end of the internship, present a summary of the work completed over the internship to Pablo’s team.

Project Dates: June 7th - August 6th, 2021 (a 10th week may be available if interested)

Benjamin Bonilla - He will be a part of an exciting new partnership with NOAA Southwest Fisheries in La Jolla, California. HIs research will occur virtually and will focus on acoustic detection of northern right whale dolphins using an automated cepstrum detector. Here's the project description from JPL: Northern right whale dolphins produce burst pulse vocalizations in repeated patterns; detection of these sounds can be used to identify the presence of this species on long term recorders deployed off the US West Coast. To date, these sounds could only be detected using manual methods that were extremely time consuming. A new automated detector has been developed that detects the periodicity of clicks in a burst pulse. This project will analyze archived recordings using the newly developed cepstrum detector to detect burst pulse calls from northern right whale dolphins. This internship will be conducted remotely, and mentors will provide data and guidance to complete the research project.