Research Projects

In college I worked in a research lab...

A quick overview:

• • Developed a system based on an ARM7 with ADC and DAC for capacitive sensing

(think touch-screens/touch-pads)... ultimately to have the ability to look *into* 3D objects kinda like a CAT scanner.

• Perfected the system for a small company (my first and only 4-layer PCB!) and repurposed it for Ion-Mobility Spectroscopy.

The idea is you ionize an unknown fluid and accelerate it through an electric-field. The time it takes for the ions to travel through this field can be used to determine the mass of the ions, which can then be used to determine what they are.

• • Had to get my hands on some mechanics, so helped design a robot that detected flaws in high-voltage cables' insulation which allow arcing between conductors...

  • A prototype exercise-machine, my first motion-control system.

I had no idea how much I'd bit off until that deadline arrived... The idea was, ultimately, to mimic terrain... But the first step was to just mimic an elliptical machine via an X-Y pulley-system.

(Ironically, my motion-control software has improved *dramatically* since this time, and is now being used for legos. Actually, for experimentation/programming at home, I built a model of this exercise-machine out of legos, they can be quite handy.)