University of Canterbury
Christchurch, New Zealand
Airborne Sensor Operators Group
https://aso-group.ning.com
Certified Scrum Product Owner
2023
Used commercially on many different platforms
Aircraft navigation and mission support system with Visual Studio 2022 & Blend
Used on several iOS projects
Used to develop tools to communicate with and control embedded software and as a stand-alone tool developer and environment simulator
Several commercial websites constructed
Module for mobile information platform
3ph brushless motor control with CAN
Pager with all decoding in software, bit-mapped LCD
User interface, bit-mapped LCD
Light dimmer with MPLAB
Light dimmer, automotive application with LCD UI, battery management system with CAN/LIN
PID controlled electronic valve
3ph brushless motor support
3ph motor control and appliance user interface
Mains power monitoring
3ph sensorless BLDC design
Data transfer back to base for aircraft location and camera data.
Multicast UDP for Windows desktop EO/IR camera simulation & iOS navigation app.
iOS interface to aircraft avionics
Controlling and logging automotive 3ph brushless motor & battery management
Battery management network
Very many different commercial applications
Bespoke pager network
iOS navigation app
Bespoke emergency pager networks in several countries
Victoria (Australia) EAS emergency paging network with over 40,000 users
Logi-Map (www.logimap.com.au) is a digital navigation software company based in Sydney.
They have produced missionMap, which is used to provide aircraft navigation and mission information for the pilot and crew of Police, Search & Rescue, Ambulance and
users with similar mission requirements.
missionMap has been rewritten from scratch for v2 in c# for WPF, to run on touch-screen ruggedised Windows platforms.
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Achievements
Requirements analysis, development and testing and deployment of entire product
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Responsibilities
Sole developer and customer technical liaison
A small development house (www.capsicumdreams.com) working on iOS and WindowsPhone apps and web applications for various international customers as well as the capsicumDreams brand.
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Responsibilities
Sole developer and customer technical liaison
Aerogenesis designs and develops innovative low cost wind tubine solutions targetted at emerging countries and remote communities. The company is currently trialling a 5kW turbine in China, and remotely monitoring performance.
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Achievements
Designed and implemented the software to log wind turbine data at 100Hz on a Windows PC, and upload automatically to a viewable online database, designed by myself
InfoStream (www.infostream.com.au) designs and develops innovative wireless products using a range of
communication technologies including paging and digital telephone (GSM, SMS, WAP, GPRS, VHF radio).
Established in 1994, the company is in the forefront of development of products for the emergency services, financial and personal information and general industrial communities, worldwide.
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Achievements
Designed and implemented the prototype firmware for a mobile information platform over GPRS.
Designed and implemented the algorithm for the paging market’s only continuously variable baud rate receiver in conjunction with a custom designed protocol, with multiple simultaneous software phase-locked loops.
Design and construction of the advanced (bespoke) network protocol used in the Victorian EAS (Emergency Alerting System) network
Implemented a unique over-the-air firmware update system that targeted specific groups of pagers.
Rework and conversion of an English pager into Dutch and Swedish languages
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Responsibilities
Senior Firmware engineer overseeing all pager development and releases.
Requirements analysis, design, implementation and testing of firmware to customer specifications.
Implementation of PC (Windows and Linux) software for test harnesses, data generation, production and network testing.
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Projects included
Mobile Information portal over GPRS to compete with Apple iPhone.
Construction of Victorian EAS paging network system and pagers for volunteer emergency services with more than 30,000 users.
Created a pager for Dutch telecommunications company for all fire service personnel in Netherlands.
Dana (www.dana.com) employs 70,000 personnel worldwide, and is the seventh largest automobile Original Equipment Manager in the world.
The Systems Integration & Advanced Engineering branch was formed as a research and development unit to design and incorporate embedded technology into previously non-electronic automotive
systems (e.g. cooling, lubrication, and drivetrain management systems).
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Achievements
Successful completion of a number of critical projects in well under the stipulated time period with results that exceeded design specifications.
The effective development, management and motivation of teams to achieve their objectives.
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Responsibilities
Sole firmware engineer responsible for the development of real-time embedded firmware for automotive applications and of hardware for supporting systems. This role included responsibility for requirements analysis, hardware selection and purchasing, algorithm design, implementation, testing and validation for all projects.
Project manager for several projects, requiring extensive liaising with mechanical and hardware engineers and clients.
Sole responsibility for developing extensive safety features to ensure system integrity in safety-critical automotive applications and ensuring compliance with MISRA (Motor Industry Software Reliability Association) software standards for safety critical systems.
Self assumed responsibility for organising and holding seminars for colleagues to learn about emerging technology, including advising on CAN protocol and strategy.
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Projects included
Development of a sensorless 3ph brushless motor controller developed for an 80W water pump and extracted maximum performance from a very low cost 8bit Motorola HC08 running at 4MHz. This project was completed in less than six months.
Design and implementation of a 3ph Hall effect brushless motor controller designed for a hydrogen fuel-cell coolant pump operated from a variable supply rail of 215V to 452V DC and featuring extraordinarily responsive and accurate speed control throughout this voltage range. This controller was CAN-enabled.
Development of a PID controlled DC brushed motor electronic water valve replacing the automotive cooling system’s thermostat and featured serial diagnostics and logging to a Windows application written in Delphi. This was a very cost-sensitive application and a classic PID control application.
Development of a Hydrogen Fuel-cell coolant pump motor - a Hall effect three phase brushless project which featured CAN communication and was designed for safety critical use. This project was completed in less than four months.
Design of Pre-priming oil pump controller, with LCD display the system had inputs from the central locking, ignition, and keyboard user interface. This was modelled and simulated in Delphi in order to refine the user interface with the customer before implementation.
Fisher & Paykel (www.fisherpaykel.com) is New Zealand’s largest manufacturer of major household appliances. F&P is an international company that maintains its market leadership through its utilisation of innovative in-house technology.
F&P currently employs over 3,000 staff and has an annual profit of NZ$70 million.
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Achievements
Completion of two sole charge projects (entire software development life cycle) which gave F&P combined savings of over NZD$2m per annum and increased efficiency through a substantial reduction in the number of spare parts.
This required the independent use of initiative, the ability to work with little guidance or supervision and a focus on exceeding expectations.
Instigation of additional cost savings though the implementation of new firmware and the elimination of subsequently unnecessary hardware.
Successful completion of a number of urgent projects requiring a rapid understanding of the scope of the task and the ability to apportion the appropriate resources (including labour, supplies and timetabling) to efficiently complete within schedule.
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Responsibilities
Developing real-time embedded software for washing machines.
Resolving design issues with new algorithms and techniques.
Communicating with overseas and local microcontroller vendors, selection of the microcontrollers and tools necessary, implementation and documentation of the code including testing.
Maintaining strong lines of communication with the engineering team to continuously identify changing goals and ensure alignment with these goals.
Supporting production in manufacture and solving technical representation requests.
Debugging hardware and firmware with emulators, oscilloscopes and other hardware tools.
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Projects included
Management of extensive firmware conversion project involving the conversion of 12kb of motor control software (progressively written over the previous ten years in assembly) into C
and implementation for a more powerful microcontroller.
Firmware rationalisation project: rationalisation of different versions of existing code and re-implementation and optimisation into another microcontroller platform.
Enhancement of customer service interface through addition on online features: implementation of a bespoke ‘modem download’ functionality to product firmware. This enabled
diagnostic information to be downloaded via the customer’s phone to our technical representative, allowing instant diagnosis and an efficient repair service.
Development of PC based communication software: involving the development of Delphi applications that communicated with the product firmware via a purpose-built
communications protocol. This aided in debugging, integration and supporting the testing staff in product verification.
angus@capsicumdreams.com