Portfolio
A few examples of my work are listed below.
Rail Industry: High-speed carrier board design
Carrier Board hardware design, for use in back-end processing of DAS signals (high-speed ADC, 600MB/s pipeline).
Scope included everything from system architecture specification to drawing up schematics and taking the layout to placement, developing test and bring-up plan and interfacing with mechanical and software/firmware contractors. This included designing in an 1156-pin Kintex Ultrascale FPGA and 841-pin Marvell processor, utilising high-speed standards – PCIe 3.0, DDR4, USB 3.0, LVDS and SFP+. PCB designed in Altium 18, and the schematic came to 99 sheets!
Medical: FES Stimulator
Design of next-generation multi-channel FES stimulator to EN 60601-1/2 medical standards.
Replaced original 8051-type processor with STM32-based platform, integrating Bluetooth, USB and other interfaces. Upgraded PC-interface software.
Turnkey project including everything from initial requirements spec to hardware, firmware and software design (brought in an associate to assist with finalising the firmware / software). Required developing an in-depth understanding of human body interface. Refined HV drive circuits and stimulation methodology. Drive circuit generates up to 250V to deliver up to 150mA into a complex capacitive load. Safety features and electrical isolation are critical.
Oil and Gas: Pipeline monitoring
Turnkey design of interface and sensor boards for use in pipeline monitoring.
Rapid turn-around design for a start-up. No time for re-spins, had to work first time round. Sensor interfaces included CAN-bus, RS232/485/422, 4-20mA. System based around interchangeable Raspberry Pi / Pycomm controllers. Included system specification, board design (schematic and layout), manufacture and bring-up.
Pipeline: Fibre-optic Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS)
Primary electronics resource on development of a next-generation DAS system. This multi-disciplinary challenge included:
- Full up-front system review to determine key electronics/optics factors affecting performance
- Optimisation/re-design of power distribution, laser drive and switching circuitry, TEC controllers, clock and trigger generation, and high-speed interfaces (PECL, LVDS)
- Board design for EMC/ESD/high-speed digital and analogue
- Improving System Characterisation testing, including development of a low-cost, vibration-damped vacuum chamber (PZT-based).
- Coding of PIC32’s in C and some VHDL for FPGAs.
The final design exhibited significant improvements in clock jitter, ASNR (Opto-Acoustic SNR) and other system performance measures, as well as reduction in system noise effects / susceptibility.
RF Mesh Network Data Acquisition
Low-power IEEE 802.15.4 mesh-network data acquisition systems:
Primary electronics resource on development, design and optimisation of a 905MHz system in production in the USA. Analysis and optimisation of mesh algorithms. Development of an 869MHz EU-based equivalent; selection and integration of a compliant transceiver chipset; antenna design and matching; EMI/EMC compliance testing; Qualification to FCC 15.247 and EN300 220; C/C++ coding in a multi-threaded STM32 ARM-based environment using Rowley CrossWorks; developed tools for in-depth analysis of large volumes of data (Perl scripting); AT command-based modem communications; 3G network issues debug; Altium multi-layer board design.
DTT Systems
Recently approximately 2 years has been spent focusing on the latest HDTV transmission standard (DVB-T2), with peripheral work on DVB-T/C and ISDB-T.
This has resulted in a sound knowledge of the standard, its implementation and issues.
Work has included IC design debug, ATE and API development (C/C++, Perl), pan-European field trial setup and execution and Far-East client support (Taiwan / China).
Embedded Systems
In partnership with Innovative Communications Ltd, developed an embedded development system based on Microchip’s 18F PIC processor series. Programmed in a C-environment the system has Bluetooth, GPS, Graphic Display, Voice, USB, SD-card and serial facilities.
DAB Radio
Receiver sensitivity optimisation / noise reduction and design productionising:
An apparent sensitivity issue turned out to be due to board-level radiation. The board was redesigned to reduce spurious coupling and emissions. This included layout changes, addition of filtering and shielding, component changes and modification of the firmware (firmware modification handled by client).
Facilitated ramp-up at Dong Guan production facility in China.
FPGA-based
Client 1: Designed an FPGA-based emulator system for a multi-function ISO 14443 / proprietary tagging system. Realised through ISE5.2 and Active HDL, utilising Xilinx Spartan chips.
Client 2: Designed an FPGA-based daughterboard for integrating with the client’s ASIC-based motherboard. The daughterboard provided a USB interface, next generation ASIC testing/control and on-the-fly data stream filtering and processing. An Actel FPGA was used.
EMC Compliance
Client 1: Developed in-house sensitivity / characterisation tests. Involved in development and installation of anechoic chamber testing facility (photo), as well as testing of various products.
Client 2: Involved in UK-based product design and EMC pre-compliance testing, followed by China-based compliance testing.
Client 3: FCC pt 15 / Industry Canada and European EN 300 220 qualification for 869/905 MHz transceiver system.
Discrete Electronics
Design of low-cost electronics for the toy industry and RFID sector. Analogue design of robotics sensors, motor drives, inductive tags and inductive / RF transceivers up to 27MHz.
Design of embedded-processor and FPGA circuits. Client / vendor liaison and facilitating production ramp-up in the Far East.
Design of inductive vehicle detectors and associated electronics.
RF Design
UHF (433MHz) hands-free access control system:
The client’s first venture into RF. As sole in-house engineer on the project I came up with the concept and developed much of the electronics, with support from an external contractor. Included design of base station and active tags, with a variable range of up to 100m. Some of the unique elements were an offset-fed circularly-polarised patch antenna and a SAW-stabilised active tag, with a mixture of microstrip and conventional technology in the RF path. Project included microprocessor programming and micro-power digital/analogue design. This became one of the flagship products for the company.
