Brett Stephens

Building robots to automate baggage handling.

Worked with a small team to design and build aerial manipulators for inspection and maintenance of infrastructure in difficult to reach and/or hazardous environments. I led the development of our autonomy pipeline (i.e. state estimation, sensor fusion, motion generation and control) required to perform within demanding conditions on high value assets.

Developed control and motion strategies for aerial manipulators capable of contacting the natural and built environment. I focused primarily on impedance and passivity-based controllers along with the paths/trajectories required to facilitate contact with targets at height.

Ford College Graduate Rotational Program: Electrified Powertrain systems - Waste heat recovery, low voltage load optimization. Motor Controls - Completion of dyno studies, model-in-the-loop and software-in-the-loop development. Program Management - Explorer vehicle launch at the Chicago Assembly Plant. Exploratory solar vehicle - Design and build of prototype solar (PV cell) assisted vehicle. Autonomous Vehicles - Development of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) for lateral lane-keeping. I ended my above rotations when I moved permanently to the ADAS team, working to increase hands-off functionality during highway driving using lane confidence levels.

Ownership of the pre-customer warranty databases for the MINI R5x model line (~600 vehicles/day). By building a variety of tools to standardized the warranty analysis process, I was able to pinpoint high-priority claims. Such claims were then driven back to the source: I led the process of identifying the defective components/processes in the manufacturing plant. These tools and processes developed and improved MINI manufacturing standards among international teams.

Aerial Robots Capable of Advanced Interaction: Control and Motion Strategies for Contact-Based Tasks

Aerial Robotics Lab: development of an interactive multi-modal micro air vehicle.

Emphasis in mechanical design and vehicle dynamics .