Summary

30+ years experience in undersea research as a systems/electronics/software engineer involved in all aspects of development, integration, at-sea testing and validation to post processing and analysis of data sets. The latter years have included exclusive experience as a systems, operations and payload engineer to becoming a principal systems engineer of two Autonomous Underwater Vehicles.

Experience

January 2007 - Present (CMRE) Center for Maritime Research and Experimentation (ex-NURC)

PRINCIPAL ENGINEER (NATO A2)

Principal engineer in CMRE's engineering department with particularo focus on two OEX-C AUV's, Responsible for all system-wide engineering decisions as well as continuing to execute engineering development, maintenance, operations and payload integration tasks. Project is dedicated to the center's scientific staff as well as external entities interested in joint research.
Principal investigator for the transformation of the OEX-C's battery packs from Ni-MH chemistry to Li-Ion.Created battery specifications for external bidders. Rewrote battery micro-controller software (LonTalk/Neuron C) to control new packs (SAFT). OEX-C's endurance was effectively doubled.
Lead system engineer in the development of an acoustic array acquisition payload for the OEX-C. Selected hardware and wrote all software for the acquisition of the CMRE built 32 channel Slim Line Towed Array (SLITA). The SLITA/OEX combination has been fundamental to the center's quest to lead in autonomous ASW research.
Developed electronics and software for a shallow water variable buoyancy device allowing the OEX-C (on sleds) to land on the sea-bottom, remaining stationary while sampling for methane plumes at the water/seafloor interface and continue to hop to other sampling locations.
Lead engineer for the integration of the MOOS based Back-Seat paradigm (MOOS IvP) as developed by the MIT Mech/Ocean Engineering Dep. (Newman, Schmidt, Benjamin, Leonard). Developed the interface between the OEX-C Front Seat auto-pilot and the Back-Seat CPU. Once Back-Seat compatible, the OEX-C was an essential asset in the early testing of the MOOS IvP which later included adaptive and collaborative behaviors with MIT's BLUEFIN vehicles. Most of this ground breaking research was done on the NATO R/V Alliance.
Successfully integrated (on the OEX-C) an In-Situ Underwater Mass Spectrometer (UWMS) developed at the German Alfred Wegener Institute. Power requirements and logistical operational handling made integration challenging. Believed to have been the first time such instrumentation was used on an autonomous platform. In-situ, real-time spectrometry drastically reduces the need for a posteriori lab analysis. The UWMS was part of a larger payload midbody section that contained numerous oceanographic/chemical environmental sensors.
Designed radio/acoustic gateway buoy which can host a suite of acoustic modems including the WHOI uModem, FAU/Edgetech and EVOLOGICS SC2 modems. A Freewave radio on the buoy guarantees extended communication ranges of up to 20+ km through the air while maintaining 2-3Km acoustic range comms with underwater vehicles. Currently used during operations with center's Bluefin 21, Remus, Folaga, Slocum gliders and OEX-C vehicles.

January 2001 - 2006 (NURC) NATO Undersea Research Center (ex-SACLANTCEN)

SCIENTIFIC ENGINEERING ASSISTANT (NATO B6)

Engineering participant/evaluator during the factory acceptance tests for center's first AUV, the Ocean Explorer Ver.C (OEX-C), built by Florida Atlantic University (FAU).
Participated in 3 week OEX-C engineering/ops course at FAU.
Mission specialist / vehicle tracking specialist during experiments involving the use of the OEX-C in various European locations which included the Baltic Sea (Kiel), Loch Ryan (Scotland), North Atlantic (Lisbon) and the Mediterranean (Ligurian Sea, Elba Island, etc..) Research areas included mine hunting, environmental monitoring and sea-floor volcanic vent research.
OEX-C payload integrator of a Low Frequency Side Scan Sonar, built by FAU. First attempt of its kind to create synthetic aperture images of buried/partially buried objects.
Responsible for maintenance of OEX-C's complex NiMH intelligent battery packs.

January 1997- 2000 (SACLANTCEN) NATO Undersea Research Center.

SCIENTIFIC ENGINEERING ASSISTANT (NATO B6)

Extensive at-sea experience: Total 2-3 months / year. Center work boat operator.
Designed UNIX based acquisition/display system for a parametric bottom penetrating mine detection sonar.
Created PC based real-time display/acquisition system for popular/robust PC208 Sony DAT recorders
Accomplished the integration and operation of a towed array real time beamformer, which included high-speed data recording and real-time processing. Responsible for complete data set reconstruction.
Developed fully programmable navigation data distributor for all laboratories on the NATO R/V Alliance.
Created acquisition and graphical analysis tool for experimental bottom type profiler.
Developed graphical/acoustic monitoring tool for a 384 channel, ATM networked, fiber based towed array. Tool also provided high-speed array telemetry data as well an audio output for individual channels.
Responsible for the design of a complete acquisition and monitoring chain for a unique 512 channel, high data rate, mine hunting sonar used for synthetic aperture algorithm development. The chain was capable of streaming up to 200MB/s to hard disk while providing graphical channel monitoring.
Designed acoustic data acquisition buoy (moored/drifting). Buoy collected acoustic (passive/active) data from 32 channel vertical line array. Data streamed to disk at rates of up to 15 MB/s. Data snapshots transmitted via 2.4GHz radio for real-time monitoring. Buoy equipped with Globalstar modem for global localization. 15 day endurance with Li-Ion battery packs. System was integral part of acoustic channel monitoring project.System is currently utilized for other projects (2014 Mammal monitoring, Ship's self noise, etc.).

June 1988 - January 1997 Naval Undersea Warfare Center, Newport, RI

ELECTRICAL ENGINEER (DOD GS 12)

Developed SONAR transmit controllers for two major low frequency sources: the HTA on the USS Glover and the MSBGS (Multi-Static Battle Group Sonar) towed low frequency source, judged to have been the loudest in the USN's history.
Created a sophisticated GUI to control a complex acoustic modelling tool. This consisted in porting HP Basic code to execute under a UNIX environment with full graphical capability. The tool also accepted real-time acoustic data and provided tactical environmental predictions.
Performed data analysis and processing on varied data sets. (CTD, SVP, ADCP, Aandera current meters, etc)
Responsible for programming, deploying, and maintaining group's EG&G acoustic releases used in a simulated mine field
Responsible for maintaining SQR-19 (USN fleet towed array) data recorders.
Extensive at-sea experience on board USN vessels.

September 1993 - September 1994 Yale University, New Haven, CT

Developed software to control and monitor mouse nerve cell stimulation. Package consisted of graphical control of cell stimulation and response. Software was used as part of the Yale Neuroscience Department's research into multiple sclerosis.

Skills

Hardware / Instrumentation

Basic circuit design, integration and testing. Excellent test bench skills. Extensive use of the PC104 form factor/Bus. System design and testing of high speed digital acquisition systems. PCI device integration/control. Control of IEEE488, RS232/422 devices. Integration and control of devices via Echelon LonTalk. Extensive experience with family of National Instruments daq/control devices. Expert knowledge in the FPDP high speed parallel digital interface. Extensive experience with radio modems (Freewave, Eion, Satel, Ubiquity). Experience with high-end timing instrumentation (Symmetricom, Brandywine, Zyfer, Jxi). Expert knowledge of oceanographic instrumentation (RDI, Sea-Bird, Edgetech, EG&G, ixBlue OCEANO, RBR). Experience with Side Scan Sonar systems (MarineSonics, Edgetech)Implementation of USBL systems (Kongsberg , Evologics). Experience with acoustic tranponder tracking suites (ORE, Benthos). System integrator of various acoustic modems (WHOI, Edgetech, Evologics). Integrator of INS systems for AUV use (PHINS, Kongsberg, Honeywell). Integrator of GPS systems (Novatel, uBlox). Extensive knowledge of primary/secondary battery chemistries along with charging/discharging/storage requirements. Experience with underwater dry/wet mate connectors and cabling (Impulse, Seaconn, Subconn, Birns, Souriau ) Experienced in performing in-situ quick repairs/prototyping during sea-trials. Familiar with Slocum gliders as well as the Liquid Robotics WaveGliders.

Languages

C, Neuron C, Visual Basic/C, HTML, Fortran, Some Python

OS's

Linux, UNIX (HPUX, Solaris, DigitalUnix), DOS, WinOS's, QNX, MacOS, DecVMS

Tools/Suites

NI LabWindows, MATLAB, IDL, X11, GTK, Motif, MS Visual Studio, Echelon LonWorks, Familiar with all major publishing/ presentation software suites.

Administrative

Responsible for purchasing and inventory upkeep for OEX-C group. Experience in writing system specifications for external vendor bidding.Manage 1-2 external yearly contractors.Technical documentation translator (Italian < > English).

Education

BS Electrical EngineeringRennselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY 1988

MSYale University, New Haven, CT 1994

Languages

Fluent in English

Fluent in Italian

Good working knowledge of Spanish

Certificates

US: FAA Small AUS (Drone) Operator License

EUROPE: ENAC/EUSA Small APR (Drone) Operator License

ITALY: Certified to work at Heights (masts, trellises, etc)

Nationality / Security Clearance

U.S. Citizenship

Clearance: Please Inquire

Publications/Citations

"SLITA: A new slim towed array for AUV applications" Co-author, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America vol. 123 issue 5 May 2008. p. 3005-3005

"Comparison of Real-time Implementation of Conventional and Adaptive Triplet Array Beamforming Algorithms for Pulsed Active Sources" Contributor, Conference: OCEANS 2019 - Marseille

"An acoustic-based approach for real-time deep-water navigation of an AUV" Contributor, Conference: 2018 International Ship Control Systems Symposium

"Real-Time Underwater Positioning and Navigation of an AUV in Deep Waters" Contributor, Conference: 2018 OCEANS - MTS/IEEE Kobe Techno-Ocean (OTO)

"Autonomous networked anti-submarine warfare research and development at CMRE" Contributor, Conference: OCEANS 2015 - Genova

List of Internal Center Reports available.