EVoloVR Headset

Innovative and competent design.

Developed before the Samsung Gear VR came to market, the EVoloVR Headset had the unique features of having independent suspension for each lens. This enables those with unsymmetrical faces and uneven eye strengths to have perfect focus and alignment when enjoying VR. The design of each interlocking component was also optimized to be producible with only one splitting line, or in an inexpensive two-piece injection mold.

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Vulcan Rocket Heat Shield

hardcore rocket design

As a contractor with ULA’s supplier RUAG, john designed several RUAG proprietary components (representative heat shield shown) to enable progression to Critical Design Review for the engine compartment heat shield:

• parametric vent design from scratch allowing for immediate geometric representation of changing vent magnitude, material strength, and available footprint
• mass and production optimized interface ring joining composite side shell and baseplate sections
• ablative cork panel segmentation covering the entire heat shield ensuring ease of install with available panel sizes
• Quick turnaround of parameterized and reusable fuel tank interface ring driven by stress analysis inputs
• environmental sensors requirements analysis and clarification with ULA customer and partner electrical engineer.

John also performed a site visit to the Alabama production facility to integrate with supply chain personnel and production engineering to transition development from design to production preparation

 

 

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Scanning Quadcopter

The inevitable application endowing autonomous drones with spatial awareness

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Gas-Phase 3D Printer

Completely outside the box.

Deep space is full of volatile rich rocky asteroids and moons. The poles of Earth’s moon are home to large reservoirs of water locked in the cold permanently shadowed crater floors. Just as ice build up in the back of home kitchen freezers, volatiles such as water in space can be moved from one location to another based on temperature. This prototype 3d gash-phase 3d printer demonstrated many of the concepts necessary to build large structures in outer space and on earth using this new method conceived of by John Benac.

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Spacecraft Trajectory Design

Orbital Mechanics meets programming meets passion

After earning his masters degree in Astronautical Engineering from the University of Southern California, John joined the guidance, navigation, and control team with Boeing and Houston developing the trajectories for NASA's manned SLS deep space rocket. He used numerical methods to optimize the launch trajectory to maximize mass for the evolving physical designed configuration and launch atmospheric environments. John also used Monte Carlo analysis to inform management as to the likely performance envelopes that they could expect. Because he thinks and communicates visually, John took these trajectories and created detailed visualizations showing animated videos of the different stages of flight and abort scenarios, making the results of the team's work clear and understood by a wide audience.

Beyond the SLS work, John has also developed two additional space missions with tremendous advantage over conventional methods:

The dawn spacecraft currently orbiting Ceres can use naturally formed craters as satellite dishes to conduct radio astronomy and demonstrate high bandwidth communication.

planer orbiting constellations of satellites can be optimized across launches to maximize orbital lifetime with low or no propulsive nanosats.

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In-Space Nuclear Fuel Production

Short-circuiting political and safety challenges.

John developed this concept for years, engaging with experts across industry and government. It stands as one of the best approaches to enabling robust high-powered deep space operations.

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Inside-Out 3D Positioning

Works with existing phone and headset hardware.

This add-on for the Samsung Gear VR snaps into place where the faceplate usually goes. Using John’s Java computer vision and open Android APIs, the tightly controlled and split laser illumination endows the mobile device with an awareness of it’s location in space with a measured accuracy of 2 mm using laser triangulation and the mobile device’s camera.

Despite the complicated geometry and packaging constraints, John designed the battery powered module to print well with conventional 3D printing

John tested the device along side both versions of Microsoft’s Kinect sensor, an and an Oculus development kit. He coded data logging software for all four sensors to benchmark comparative performance.

John designed and built a six degree of freedom high precision mechanical articulation rig and an enclosing test chamber to characterize and compare the performance of competing 3d sensors.

Documentation of final test results from the custom data logging software and (Kinect) point cloud analysis.

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Life Support Systems Engineering

Depth of knowledge paired with big picture understanding

At the start of a new phase of Sierra Nevada Corporation’s development of the Dream Chaser spacecraft, John cross checked different missions that were currently and potentially available to SNC along with the state of ECLSS technologies current in the stable of SNC, its subsidiaries, and competitors. The resulting analysis recommends which development pathways would yield the largest return on investment and NASA customer satisfaction.

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Innovative Online Activism

Database backend through native mobile app front end catalyst for positive activism.

John built the application featured on the above website to empower would be activists and their supporters to quickly and easily enable action. By building out a full MySQL database lined to an Amazon Web Services LAMP stack and custom PHP code, John created a robust backend to serve frontend iOS and Android native apps hooking into device calendar, maps, email, and telephone functions.

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Astronaut Food from Waste Gases

Bringing terrestrial bioproduction to the stars.

After being inspired by recent trends toward methane powered deep space rockets, and having a familiarity with the ISS methane waste venting, John assembled a coalition of industry and academic partners to propose to NASA’s 2017 STTR solicitation bioreactors topic. This coalition pursues the goal John identified of using methane used in rocket propellants and ECLSS waste gas streams to produce food and polymers, as is currently done with earthly Methane by industry partner Calysta.

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Lunar Space Elevator

From concept through performance characterization.

Rapid design through performance characterization for innovative space application.

The mechanism John developed above can enable transfer of mass along a cable in tension straddling the Earth-Moon Lagrange point.

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737 Exit Row

World class lean manufacturing.

As a manufacturing engineer on the 737 production floor, John had a direct impact on the design and verification methods for the best selling jet airliner on the planet. When customers suddenly began ordering replacement armrest pads in large quantities, John got to the bottom of how a design change to adhere the pads was driving replacement costs when workers needed to access the internals of the exit door. As it turns out, the glue keeping passengers from stealing the armrests was also forcing mechanics to destroy the armrests when they needed to disassemble the door for maintenance! John devised a system requiring mechanics to use a tool to remove the armrest, eliminating customer theft and mechanic rework of the armrests.

Later, John solved a problem where Boeing was relying on a plum-bob on a string to show the FAA how far back the seats in front of the exit protruded. It was a cumbersome and imprecise process. John designed a rotary laser tool which clamped into the seat rails to delight the FAA and demonstrate that passengers would have safe egress from every 737 with high confidence and low verification time.

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