How have your combined experiences as a former active-duty officer, current Navy Reservist and NPS faculty member influenced the way you approach problem-solving and technology development?

Life experiences form the basis for how all of us approach problems, but certain combinations of sometimes very unrelated experiences often render unusual perspectives.  Growing up in the Midwest and spending countless hours hunting in the woods, for example, has made me very good at noticing small details in nature.  Flying navy helicopters on aircraft carriers made me especially attentive to technological details upon which mine and the lives of my crew depended.  Often, while walking the line on a "FOD walkdown" underway on a carrier flight deck would I feel the same momentary excitement at the sight of a loose screw that I would get by recognizing a pair of eyes looking back at me in the snow covered brush when I was a kid hunting the railroad tracks.  Later, I developed a love for exploration of the underwater world (SCUBA diving was something I had never done in the Midwest but was always drawn to).   The view from the cockpit on an overcast night hundreds of miles from shore, where black waters mesh seamlessly with black sky, shares much in common with a nighttime dive if one only turns out his light.  
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I studied aerospace engineering as a midshipman with the intent of one day using that knowledge to aid the warfighter after I had had my turn being one.  Of course, as is often the case with an officer's career, not everything turned out like I had planned.  On the other side of my first sea tour flying with the Golden Falcons of HSC-12, I realized that I wanted to get back to the creative, the little things, and the details again.  Thus, I asked my detailer to send me to NPS and my wish was granted; a couple years later, I received my MS in Systems Engineering from the department that I now work for. Within the context of systems engineering, I find the creative elements - the act of inventing - the crown jewel.  In those designs, I always try to see if I can tie in aspects or attributes of unrelated fields, experiences or interests. In the case of undersea technology, for example, I have found the journey of Beebe and Barton of 1930's Bathysphere fame, or Piccard and his Bathyscaph (1950s - early 1960s) to be supremely helpful.  I now get the same spark of excitement when I imagine a modern robotics application for a technology or method of a hundred years ago that I had back when spotting a screw on the flight deck conjured the memory of the glint of part of a whitetail antler in the woods.  There's something beautiful about finding useful connection (or even synergy) in the juxtaposition of extreme contrast:  the pairing of antique technologies with modern robotics, or the eyes in the brush at dusk and the wrench you almost miss during pre-flight in the far corner of the helicopter engine compartment (that would never happen, would it?)

What capability gaps do the WIEVEL Systems help close for the Navy and undersea warfare community?

As its name - the Wreck Interior Exploration Vehicle, or WIEVLE - implies, my spherical autonomous underwater vehicle was originally developed for confined-space exploration (or inspection).  Since the conceptualization of the physical and functional architecture, developed to meet the requirements of the mission of shipwreck penetration, a variety of potential use cases have been investigated to varying degrees.  Like a truck, which has multiple possible uses but for which some are better suited to the design, WIEVLE, as a spherical-hulled underwater platform has its own set of ideal use cases as an effects-delivery, utility or sensor platform.  The vehicle is a sphere because a sphere occupies the same volume in space no matter which way it rotates - thus, it is ideally mobile within a confined or entanglement-prone space.  Similarly, its propulsion system is designed to allow the vehicle to maneuver in tight quarters and, in the case of confined spaces, with minimal disruption of settled sediments.  Its modularity (attained through special payload or sensor carrying compartments and its stackable plated ring hull configuration, makes WIEVLE suitable for a variety of missions in entanglement prone environments (such as littoral zones) or confined spaces.  My motive hypothesis is that WIEVLE is a platform that offers a ticket to a game that traditional (torpedo-shaped) UUVs cannot access.  Finally, the vehicle's low cost and ability to be largely constructed with 3d printed parts makes it a good candidate for filling a variety of capability gaps where expendable systems (or many individual expendable systems) are ideal.  

Both systems you’ve patented emphasize modularity and compatibility with a variety of delivery platforms. Why is that design approach essential for undersea operations today and where do you see it headed next?

No undersea vehicle is suitable for every imaginable mission, since none are magic.  Thus, WIEVLE, like every other system, has inherent limitations (beyond the obvious limitations due to its current tech-readiness level (TRL) or development maturity).  For example, as a sphere, it is not inherently suitable for long-distance travel, high velocity travel or even agility (as opposed to mobility, for which it is quite suitable).  Since most target environments are some distance from shore or vessel, it should be considered necessarily as part of a larger system (or system-of-systems) for delivery to the environment.  It may also carry payloads, perhaps even another vehicle.  

My most recent patent, for a conceptual resetting anchor / antenna tether mechanism (RAATM) was conceived for use within the WIEVLE platform, although it could be used in any other suitable platform.  It represents the first a series of expanded technologies originating from the parent invention, WIEVLE.  Thus, I hope to expand a WIEVLE Family of Systems.  In 2023, with much support, I began developing a laboratory and research program around this effort.

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