Lockheed Martin Skunkworks. UAVs.
In-field air speed
I was involved in two “little” projects that were both fun and exciting.
The first was writing firmware (under ArduPilot) for a special speed sensor called a “pitot tube” (for example, upper right) for unmanned drones. I controlled two sensors, a MEMS (Micro-Electromechanical Systems) pressure sensors (AUAV-class sensor), a standard temperature-humidity-barometer sensor, and a heating mantle. I also proposed a method for detecting inlet blockage from software.
The diagram, right, which I pulled from the net, has a problems with one being moisture accumulation in its cavity which may plug the static pressure tube.
Thermal camera calibration
In the second, I oversaw the interfacing of thermal imaging calibration. (No, that’s not me. I wouldn’t wear a goofy hat like that.) Later, after I left the company, I wrote an invention proposal to automate calibration using a cheap 3D printer frame. The analysis/proposal document is below.
Example Proposal for Lockheed Martin
CaptionCall.com
Low hearing telephonics: Connecting people after years of silence
I tell you that this was the best place I ever worked. I was hired at the inception when the future was completely uncertain. It wasn’t long before CaptionCall, a subsidiary of Sorenson Communications, was not only making more than Sorenson but was carrying all the water.
Here I garnered four utility and three design patents. For 16 years I was able not only to write programs for people but to work with competent and knowledgeable peers.
I was responsible with:
- The “board support package” and getting it to work with the different platforms.
- The build process.
- Database synchronization with the backend. (I wrote a minimal DBMS for the 57t.)
- Client network full stack.
- “Final Assembly Tests” which were apps that ran on the devices and tested all of the hardware features — including CPU throttling.
CaptionCall.com
Captioned voice for the low hearing.
Inventions:
- Reliable database in an unreliable environment (USPTO #9258415-B1)
- User input, recording, emulation, and screen scraping for test automation.
- Multicast massive firmware updates.
- Automatic left/right ear detection for selecting audiograms.
Metatec Corp. CDROM manufacturer.
Contract CDROMs
Metatec for about 15 years “printed” CDROMs, both audio and data for several international companies. The data CDs most notably included were OCLC and CAS. I was on this development team.
One client from a leading stock brokerage needed a CDROM to compete with another firm that stored 10 years of 1700 DOW and NASDAQ securities. The competitor’s CDROM took a very long time to execute simple queries: hours to days! Our contract promised better performance.
I invented a way to reduce queries down to <0.5 seconds per subquery (<field><comparison operator>[<field>|<constant>]) by turning the database table on its side. Instead of reading each company record at a time, my algorithm read each field for all companies at a time. Since the column data was stored contiguously on a track, the execution time was just the movement of the head (<0.5 seconds at that time).
Hewlett Packard. Printer division.
Setting a new standard in computer publication
I was hired on in the network-printing R&D moving laser printing from the desktop to the workshop where a networked business could use a single printer.
The first product was the HP LaserJet IIISi. The III mimicked the personal printer line. We had no idea was “Si” meant; it just sounded cool to marketing.
Inventions:
- Injected code to display all LCD messages for testing.
- Tested and uncovered many serious defects in Adobe’s PostScript that crashed the printer and forced a reboot.
- Wrote an automatic printer language detection for PCL, HPGL, PostScript, and EPSON using simple neural net and Bayes AI. USPTO #5392419-A.
- Created a real-time event operating system on a 8052 to emulate printer engines, saving engineers months of time waiting for an engine. When I returned a couple years later, I learned that the emulator was a mainstay for all engineers.
