My Work at Google X

Jan 29

Disclaimer: These are technical overviews of my works, excluding any confidential information, multimedia, experimental results, or business details beyond publicly available information. This write-up is solely intended to demonstrate my skills, not to detail the company’s projects.

X, the Moonshot Factory (formerly Google[x]), is Google’s deep tech incubator focused on creating breakthrough technologies to solve tough problems (for example, Waymo self driving cars). I have worked on three projects at X as a hardware engineer. Beyond applying core physics and engineering principles, I frequently had to dive into new domains to build specialized hardware collaboratively. Since the teams were small and primarily engineering-focused, I also took on significant product and project management responsibilities.

Everyday Robot Project

(Consumer Robotics)

Everyday Robot cleaning a table. *Courtesy: Google X Website*

The Everyday Robot Project (currently discontinued) aimed to create affordable, non-humanoid robots capable of performing general tasks in human environments. The first version could handle simple tasks like cleaning tables, sorting trash, and disinfecting surfaces.

The team wanted to incorporate tactile sensing in its proprietary gripper technology, and I was tasked with establishing the foundations for it.

Tactile Sensing Research:

Everyday Robot Gripper. *Courtesy:* *NYT article*

Since tactile sensing still has very few established standards in sensorics, I conducted comprehensive research to define the essential metrics for our application. I evaluated various tactile sensors in the market, including experimental and academic ones, assessing their suitability for our robots. I also studied tactile sensing in humans and animals to understand tactile modalities like shear, slip, and touch at a biological level, deriving technical requirements from these insights. Additionally, I reviewed the robot’s existing sensor suite and targeted use cases to identify potential redundancies and simplify the development of tactile-sensing capabilities.

Tactile Sensing Experiments:

*Different modalities of tactile sensing.*

To incorporate tactile sensing to on our existing robot, I integrated an experimental tactile sensor, designing all the custom body fixtures and mechanical parts. I assembled a small team to develop the electronic interfaces and programming scripts needed to incorporate tactile feedback in the robot system. Our goal was to showcase the enhanced capabilities to the broader team, which we achieved by successfully demonstrating an "insert-a-plug" task that had previously been extremely challenging without tactile feedback.

In the end, I established the technical and design foundations for developing a unique tactile sensing solution that would best suit our robot’s needs.

Electrolyzer Project

(Clean Energy)

I worked on a stealth project (currently discontinued) at X with a mission to develop the lowest-cost electrolyzer—a device that splits water into hydrogen and oxygen gases. As a mechanical engineer on the team, I contributed to fundamental research, product design, and testing of the electrolyzer.

Cell Reaction Visualizer

Conventional methods to evaluate electrolyzer cell efficiency often lack insight into the causes of performance changes, relying instead on lengthy periods of gas quality measurements. To address this, I developed a unique test system using a high-speed camera to observe real-time cell reactions, capturing critical design interactions. This setup required encapsulating a thin section of the cell in a transparent chamber and replicate a working cell’s conditions. Building the system involved expertise in materials, fluid dynamics, mechanical design, high-speed videography, and close collaboration with scientists to validate the setup. The results were highly insightful, and their novelty earned high praise from industry veterans.

Electrolyzer Test Stand

I led the design and construction of a test stand to assess the long-term performance of our prototype electrolyzer stack. Before the build, to finalize a system schematic, my role included aligning stakeholder requirements by leading brainstorms, designing critical testing methodologies with experiments, and ensuring safety with interlocks for chemicals and electrical components. For the build, I constructed many of the key parts, including a thermal chamber, custom spill containers, and instrument fixtures, and managed the integration of gas control, filtering, and analysis instruments, ensuring a leak free system. The test stand was successfully commissioned, running smoothly for several months.

Misc. Components and Efficiency-Boosting Tools

To expedite our research and improve design efficiency, I created various custom tools and components. Highlights include a spring-loaded thermocouple clamp that adjusts for large-scale thermal expansion, a fluid level sensor height-setting fixture with precise calibration, a custom contact-based liquid sensor with precisely adjustable probe heights while maintaining air-tightness. These tools and components significantly enhancing research productivity and operational efficiency.

Project Taara

(Telecommunication)

Taara Module. *Courtesy: Google X Website*

Taara's mission is to expand global access to high-speed internet by using laser-light beams to transmit data in open space, as a much cheaper alternative to fiber optics.

Taara’s Optical Pointing and Tracking System. *Courtesy: Google X Website*

I contributed to their development of a steering mirror technology by building a comprehensive test-bed to simplify and automate basic tests (like temperature profiling and zero drift) and system identification tests (such as step and frequency response), and also provide an intuitive platform to build custom tests.

Hardware Overview

I designed quick-swap fixtures for safe and precise mirror replacements on the test-bed mount, the cooling systems and enclosures for all the electronics. I also integrated network switches and cameras with the test-bed controller (a Raspberry Pi) for remote operation.

Software Overview

I developed a Python library for intuitive test-coding, built a data collection system that cleans, labels, and validates data on the controller before uploading it to the cloud. Additionally, I created a cloud-based application to visualize many steering mirror-specific test results, which also allowed quick real-time analysis during test development.

This effort provided the team with a robust and user-friendly steering-mirror testing system, helping to quickly reveal any issues in prototype units. The library I built enabled rapid test development with minimal code, making testing more efficient and accessible for the entire team.

Sandesh Manik