David Medeiros was born and raised on the island of Maui. He graduated from King Kekaulike High School in 2002. He is currently attending Maui Community College and hopes to graduate with an A.S. degree in the Electronics and Computer Engineering Technology (ECET) program. In his spare time, David likes to hang out with friends, race at the drag strip and play video games.

Home Island: Maui
High School: King Kekaulike High School
Institution when accepted: Maui Community College

Akamai Project: Software Modification to Improve GEODSS CCD Camera Field-of-View

Project Site: Northrop Grumman

Mentor: Albert Esquibel

Project Abstract:

A CCD camera uses a small rectangular piece of silicon called a charge-coupled device rather than a piece of film to receive incoming light. This silicon wafer is a solid-state electronic component which has been micro-manufactured and segmented into an array of individual light-sensitive cells called “photosites”. Each photosite is one element of the whole picture that is formed, thus it is called a picture element, or “pixel”. GEODSS (Ground Based-Electro-Optical Deep Space Surveillance System) observes objects that are orbiting around Earth. Currently, one of the three GEODSS telescopes has developed a problematic bad segment of pixels on its CCD camera. The goal of this project was to modify the system to disregard the error, allowing the system to perform as normal with only a slight degradation of field-of-view (FOV), compared to the greatly reduced FOV that stands now with the entire port being blocked through software manipulation. The camera electronics have become stable so the software can be modified to increase the FOV from its current state and possibly improve its performance. The camera head electronics cannot be changed, as this will entail voltage changes that may degrade or cause failure to the camera. Modifying the software is the most viable solution. The project’s technical orders, procedures, and results will be discussed.