Russell Smith

Architecture, detailed technical design, and manufacturing of a highly miniaturized "Arduino for space" - a low cost space-hardened host system to reduce time-to-flight for JPL instrument payloads. Using experience and relationships built during CADRE, this design marries 345 power electronics with 358 avionics systems. TubeBot now serves as the baseline system for CASTLE avionics, having proven non-op survival to 50 Kelvin. Additionally, TubeBot is the hardware foundation of a 24 student class I teach at Caltech (GE197 - From Concept to Coast).

Developed bare-metal C++ to run the SPARC 1kW power converter system, including a command and control system to interface with an F' component. Other responsibilities included radiation testing the C2000 MCU at LBNL.

Within 16 months of joining the project, successfully fielded a fully remote autonomous robotics mission including two base stations and a rover. Explored over 320 meters and returned over 100 images during a 10 week operations campaign. The BRUIE avionics and firmware stack have been adopted by multiple projects, successfully fielding one Antarctic research project (GLASS: Grounding zone Long-term Acoustic Sensing of Structure) with a second project scheduled to deploy in January 2027 (SURGE: Subsurface Robotics for Grounding Zone Exploration).

As engineering lead I was able to navigate the team through system trades, optimizing for extreme schedule pressure.

Collaboration with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution to develop two fully autonomous underwater drones, for which I designed the avionics and navigation software stack. Most recently deployed in the Aleutian Trench to provide nightly reconnaissance and seafloor maps for Alvin (human crewed submersible). After four years of deployments and several dozen ocean dives, Orpheus has now spun out from WHOI into a private company.

During pandemic I built the first CADRE rover in my living room. Three years later, we delivered the flight system.

Acting as the avionics systems engineer, I led resource trade studies, wrote and V&V'd requirements, managed schedule and budget across multiple dramatic project-wide cutting exercises, and anticipated and mitigated potentially project-ending pitfalls with strategic early resource allocation. Through this process, I built close relationships with domain experts across both JPL (power, harnessing, packaging, radiation, FPGA, firmware, thermal) and private industry (Motiv, ModalAI, Redwire). I formulated a highly accelerated system integration plan covering all CADRE electronics elements. I then led major testing efforts through ATLO and TVAC. Additionally, the work I did to build a ground data system for I&T and ATLO evolved into the GDS tools we plan to use in flight.

• Designed and build Ingenuity Mars Helicopter gravity offload system: development and flight testing in 150ft chamber
• SR&TD PI: Miniaturized Isobaric Gas-Tight sampler (MinIGT) For Bio-signatures and Life Detection on Ocean Worlds
• Hardware and firmware design of sensor mast for ice wall climbing inchworm, fielded on Mt. St. Helens
• Iterative Research: hybrid biomimetic-electrostatics for wall adhesion
• Hardware design of robotically deployed structures for in space telescope assembly (iSTAR)
• Hardware design of electromechanical payload interface for satellite bus (PROPS)