HRL Laboratories

Technologies Used: Embedded C, SPI, RF Theory, Xilinx Vitis, Xilinx Vivado, and more

Summary:

During the 2022 summer after my first year, I joined HRL Laboratories as an undergraduate intern. I am a part of their Sensors and Electronics Laboratory (SEL), specifically in their RF & mmWave Subsystems group. HRL Laboratories (formerly Hughes Research Laboratory) is an industrial R&D laboratory located in Malibu, CA. SEL is one of their four main laboratories which specializes in many areas of sensing and electrical engineering within its groups.

During my internship, I primarily developed firmware and embedded systems for projects. I also assisted with large-scale testing for various projects, collected data for research projects, and worked with Python scripts for data processing. Through doing these, I learned a lot about embedded systems development, RF theory, and RF theory's applications.

Embedded Systems and Firmware

My primary role in this internship was working with embedded systems on radar systems. With this, I worked with industrial development tools such as Xilinx Vitis and Vivado. I learned about SPI, a common communication method used in many embedded systems applications, and I implemented it in my projects. I also gained a lot of experience reading and interpreting technical documentation for various chips and utilizing information to assist my development. I worked on a primary project the whole summer which had me integrate new systems within an existing project. I started this from scratch and was able to complete the primary goal of the project within 11 weeks. The most exciting thing about my experience which I'm very grateful for is that my final products had a significant impact and are currently being used by the team.

Testing and Other Roles

In addition to my primary work, I also assisted in other areas on the team. I attended field testing for larger-scale radar projects where I helped with setup and data collection. Through this, I learned a significant amount about RF theory and how radar applications use it. I also learned how to interpret RF data in important ways. I also worked with other interns to set up testing for research projects, in which we collected important data.

Future

I am continuing my work at HRL Laboratories in the same group this fall as a remote part-time intern. I will continue to focus on embedded systems and firmware development, assisting the team with new projects and tasks while I'm at Georgia Tech! I feel very grateful to be working on such a great team with amazing employees and mentors and I look forward to continuing learning and working at HRL.