Project Overview

Contributed to a robotics research initiative aiming to shatter the jumping robot world record (targeting 175ft / Storke Tower height). To quantify both the extreme kinetic impulse and takeoff velocity, I engineered a custom 27.4 kHz data acquisition system and a hardware-interrupt-driven camera synchronization architecture.

Engineering Highlights & Individual Contributions

• High-Frequency DAQ & Payload Optimization: Overcame standard serial bottlenecks to hit the dual-ADC physical hardware limit (27.4 kHz). Programmed a dual-core ESP32 in C++ utilizing circular buffers and optimized binary packet structure (reducing payload size from 3,084 to 1,544 bytes). Engineered a custom Python GUI on the desktop to decode, visualize, and log the high-speed binary stream with zero data loss.

• Hardware-Interrupt Camera Synchronization: Designed a split-signal wireless architecture to synchronize load cell force data with a high-speed camera for velocity analysis. Transitioned from an unreliable noise-based software trigger to a robust 3V hardware interrupt, halting the camera’s looping buffer upon clutch release to capture the exact milliseconds of dynamic impact.

• Sensor Calibration & Latency Diagnostics: Designed 3D-printed mounts and executed physical calibration protocols for force and torque, achieving a perfect linear regression (R^2 = 0.99). Conducted rigid-impact testing to evaluate system transport latency, successfully diagnosing and quantifying a ~7–11ms desync for future architectural mitigation.