Marshall Floyd

The Guardian XO is a fully electric battery-powered full-body exoskeleton that a person can wear to help lift 200 pounds without feeling the weight.
I helped with motor controls, optimal control of energy engagement storage springs parallel to the actuators, firmware, field-oriented controls, high-level control algorithms, software and mechanical safety analysis, operator safety simulations, and full-robot safety analysis through STPA. I handled the root cause analysis for several unexpected behaviors and developed theories that modeled the issues.

This project led the simulation and analysis team to model all Sarcos' robots (not just the exoskeletons) to quantify specific characteristics and behaviors and help predict needed joint torque, speed and power requirements, and structural requirements for new robots.

Chiron is a hexapod robot with 18 joints for walking over rubble and manipulating things such as a valve. I was the co-team lead in the development of Chiron for the DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC). I developed all the walking and manipulation behaviors and a new user interface. The robot simulations and user interface were built in the V-REP simulator with additional Lua scripts. In addition, I supervised the hardware team in modifying the joint design, including cycloidal gear.

Kairos Uomo is a robot that can teleoperate or autonomously drive a vehicle by placing it in the driver's seat without any vehicle modifications. Kairos Uomo can drive the vehicle using its gas and brake pedals, steering wheel, and gear shift manipulator, and it can be controlled autonomously or remotely via a handheld controller.

I simulated Kairos Uomo driving a vehicle in V-REP and developed controls for an arm mounted outside the vehicle. I connected the physical remote control to drive the virtual Uomo, with real-time physics simulation of the vehicle and contact dynamics.

IHMC was the top US team in the DRC and VRC, taking first place in the VRC and second place in the DRC trials and finals. IHMC controlled the humanoid Atlas robot to perform various tasks such as walking across rough terrain, opening doors, driving a vehicle, and manipulating hoses and valves.

For the VRC, I was on the special operations team developing behaviors to get the virtual Atlas robot to stand back up if it fell. I developed behaviors for sitting up, looking around, rolling over, crawling, and standing up from supine and prone poses. The ability to stand up from a fall was used multiple times during the VRC competition. This helped us score a few more points, besides helping calm the operator's nerves, knowing falling wasn't the end—which probably prevented some falls as well.

For the DRC, I helped operate the physical Atlas robot and helped with controls for the iRobot hands. The hand controls required Java and C to interface with the hands. I also implemented a footstep planning code and UI changes to allow Atlas to walk in any direction, combining simultaneous turning and translation.