Aerys - Mechanical Engineering Internship

During my summer internship at Aersys, I was responsible for ideating, developing, and launching a new product or service. I led a team of other interns in developing an autonomous ground delivery module designed to interface with Aersys' smart pickup/drop-off kiosk - the AerNode. Our system was designed to allow retailers, fast food restaurants, college dining halls, or companies and organizations to autonomously distribute items stored in the module individually or from a connected modular storage unit, into autonomous vehicles. 

I focused on mechanical prototyping, system integration, and design-for-manufacturing (DFM) in the context of autonomous last-mile logistics.

My primary work focused on the mechanical design of our autonomous delivery system. Along with my team of fellow interns, I specifically: 

• Co-developed the mechanical architecture of a rover-compatible interface for secure delivery bin retrieval and drop-off, including actuation alignment tolerances and passive locking mechanisms. 

• Supported iterative prototyping and conducted bench-level testing on subassemblies for autonomous docking precision and mechanical reliability.

•  Applied DFM principles to refine CAD models for manufacturability and easy assembly within the rover module requirements. 

• Manufactured basic prototypes of the item positioning mechanism, bin extraction mechanism, and automated entryway system for rovers to enter the module.