Capabilities

• Ability to combine software, electrical, mechanical and academic knowledge with leadership skills to build top performing cross-functional teams that dramatically improve the return on R&D and technology investment, greatly enhancing the commercial value of products.
• Applying Value Engineering, DFMAT and Brainstorming techniques to maximise the creativity and innovation required to take products from concept, through development and into production, while reducing costs and optimising price/performance, reliability and maintainability of designs.
• Substantial experience in real-time multi-tasking embedded software engineering using Object Orientated and structured programming techniques with a significant track record in specialised control system applications, employing a variety of high level languages (C/C++, PLM, Fortran, Basic, PLC ladder logic) and assembler languages (6501/2, 8085, Z8/80, 68000, 6802/09, 8051, HPC64000).
• Hardware engineering of analogue, digital and microprocessor electronic circuits using schematic capture, simulation and PCB layout development packages. Hardware/Software integration, debug and test using tools such as processor emulators and logic analysers.

Achievements

• Formed Automatic Test & Control Limited in 1985 to provide a range of consultancy and sub-contact services to other high technology companies involved in automatic test equipment and specialised control system development, accumulating a growing wealth of technical and commercial business skills from a broad range of industries and market sectors.
• Appointed Technical Director of an international packaging equipment manufacturer, leading a team of mechanical, electrical and software engineers developing the next generation range of bespoke FFS (form, fill and seal) wrapping machines and intelligent feeding systems. >>>
• Utilised a wide range of academic, analytical and problem solving skills in the development of a highly innovative Nd-YAG medical laser system, which was half the size and had a greater power range than its worldwide competition while being manufactured at much lower cost. >>>
• Developed a prototype impulse test system for audio speakers that reduced the test time from 5 minutes to 5 seconds while providing a vast increase in resolution, compared to conventional frequency scanning techniques. >>>
• Developed a dual temperature sensor PID algorithm for a CO2 shaker incubator system which actively controlled the spatial temperature distribution to provide exceptionally uniform and gentle convection circulation of the chamber atmosphere, preventing turbulence that could otherwise shock growing cells or rapidly spread contamination as found in fan assisted designs. >>>
• Developed a real-time pre-emptive operating system kernel based on MASCOT principles (Modular Approach to Software Construction, Operation and Test) to provide multi-tasking facilities for small to medium sized control systems. >>>

Academic Background

• B.Sc. (Hons) Applied Physics, specialising in process control, kinematics and engineering mathematics.
• Received the Thomas Gibb Wilson award for the research and development of a constant acceleration drive system for a Mössbauer spectrometer, which makes use of the Doppler effect in the study of nuclear structure to quantify the hyperfine transitions between nuclear energy levels identified by the resonant absorption and isotropic re-emission of gamma rays. Following detailed analysis of the electro-mechanical moving coil velocity transducer, the resulting predictive feed-forward control waveform, containing components proportional to the integral and first and second derivatives of the required response, reduced feedback to a second order correction which significantly improved the linearity and performance over the velocity range of interest.