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People

Brian Wilcox

Address:

4800 Oak Grove Drive
M/S 107-
Pasadena, CA 91109

Phone:

818.354.4625

Fax:

818.354.8172
FORMER MEMBER

Brian Wilcox

JPL Fellow

Education

M.S. Electrical Engineering, University of Southern California, 1992
Emphasis in Signal and Image Processing

B.S. Physics, University of California at Santa Barbara, 1973.

B.A. Mathematics, University of California at Santa Barbara, 1973

Professional Experience

1999-Current: Principal Investigator for several NASA research tasks in the area of robotic vehicle development for planetary exploration. Recent tasks managed by Mr. Wilcox include the "Robotically-deployed Lunar Telescope" feasibility task and the "Nanorover Outposts" feasibility task, both of which led to development of one or more working prototypes as part of the feasibility demonstration.

1985-2005: Supervisor of the Robotic Vehicles Group at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The Robotic Vehicles Group was responsible for the control and navigation of the Sojourner Rover, which explored part of Mars in the summer of 1997, including design of the electronics and navigation sensors, development of the control software including all elements (command sequencing, power control, communication codes and handshaking, instrument deployment, as well as hazard detection and avoidance), and mission operations. The group is currently responsible for similar activities for both the MUSES CN Nanorover as well as the Mars '03/05 "Athena" rover. Mr. Wilcox was personally responsible for conceiving and developing the stereo camera and laser ranging system used on the Sojourner rover, and for the system design concept of the MUSES CN nanorover.

1982-1985: Senior Engineer, Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Responsible for system engineering of rover and robot systems, including computing, software, power, and communications for testbed rovers and robots.

Publications

1992
  1. Brian Wilcox, "Robotic Vehicles for Planetary Exploration," Journal of Applied Intelligence, 2nd Qtr 1992, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston MA., pp. 181-193, 01 January 1992.
1987
  1. Brian H. Wilcox and Donald B. Gennery, "A Mars Rover For the 1990's," Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, Vol. 40, No. 10, pp. 483-488, 01 October 1987.