- Metecs News -

METECS is very grateful to have had three wonderful interns with us this summer. Not only were they a great addition to our team this summer, they also accomplished a great deal!


Burton Chen came to METECS from the University of Texas and worked on implementing a Coulomb friction model into NASA's robotics simulation. The friction model uses an iterative numerical procedure proposed by Y.M. Kao, Y. Yang, and L. Nguyen. Burton was able to complete the implementation and show that the method successfully eliminated certain noise and unwanted behavior in the joint rates, improving our robotics simulation fidelity.

Gage Eads is also from the University of Texas. Gage worked on simulation code that models line-plane contact. This model uses collision detection to verify an intersection between a line and a plane, and then computes the necessary forces and moment about the two interacting objects to realistically simulate contact. Using this software, complex simulations using points, lines and planes are able to model intricate robotic interactions that occur on the Space Station.

Drake Deno returned this summer from Purdue University for his third internship with Metecs. Drake continued development on a contact modeling tool that he had worked on in previous internships. This tool allows users to define contact geometries and surface properties graphically. It then exports this data into a contact simulation which will adequately generate forces and torques generates by contact of the interfaces. Drake's tool was quickly put to use to generate a model used to help the astronauts train a robotics operation where a sensitive payload on the International Space Station will be inserted and extracted from a Japanese vehicle.

All in all, the interns did some amazing work! We hope they enjoyed their time here as much as we did, and we hope the experience, knowledge, and contacts they acquired will be useful to them in the future.


Good luck Burton, Drake, and Gage in your studies and your future endeavors. We hope to hear from you soon.

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