Bracknell, England, United Kingdom
Currently running own electrical installation and testing business in the Bracknell area in the UK, with a focus on the domestic sector - now in the third year of trading. Formerly a senior engineer with over 30 years’ experience in the RF and telecommunications industry, most recently specialising in WLAN and Bluetooth wireless connectivity technologies and acted as the chair of certification and standardisation groups at the Wi-Fi Alliance and Bluetooth SIG. Extensive product development experience from standardisation and component specification, circuit and board design, supplier and subcontractor management, through to high volume manufacturing & ISO9000 quality standards. Chaired Nokia’s UK pensions council, and acted as a pension trustee director for over 10 years. Specialties: Electrical installation, testing and fault-finding, wireless standards and certification program development, engineering process development, engineering program review and auditing, quality tools, RF & cellular handset design, CAE, and also pension scheme administration.
Now in my third year running own successful small company offering electrical installation, fault-finding and testing services in and around the Bracknell area, for residential customers and small businesses. Approved by ELECSA competent person scheme for electrical contracting, also qualified for periodic inspection and testing of electrical installations (and hold C&G 2395).
Represented Nokia in the Wi-Fi Alliance, chaired the IBSS technical task group and acted as Nokia’s delegate in a number of other task groups including Ease of Use, Mesh, Spectrum & Regulatory, TVWS and Display. As IBSS technical task group chair, managed the development of the IBSS specification and certification test plan, and acted as editor for these documents. Represented Nokia in the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (BT SIG), chaired the BT SIG Ultra Low Power (ULP) working group and acted as Nokia’s delegate in a number of other working groups. As ULP working group chair, managed the development of the Bluetooth low energy standard plus the test documentation, and acted as editor for some parts of the specification. Following the low energy specification adoption, was editor for two of the early profiles plus associated services and test documentation, and a contributor to several other profiles. In both organisations, liaised with Nokia program development teams and other stakeholders to reach consensus on Nokia’s position, and to feedback standardisation status and plans. Also chairman of Nokia’s UK pensions council, and a pension trustee director for the UK pensions scheme.
Process and Quality representative for the local RF Line organization, plus owned various global RF process responsibilities in Nokia. Liaised with technical experts at other sites to maintain and develop the processes, and adapted them as technology and design methodology evolved. Owner for System Design and RF Design processes and milestone review checklists. Created a process to control and monitor the development of key electrical components, adopted globally in the company, and by a number of suppliers. Acted as review authority for many reviews. Supported business unit quality initiatives, for example developed FMEA templates and assisted product programs who used them. Developed a wide-ranging set of RF-related design guidelines, collected from subject-matter experts in Nokia globally and published as a set of guidelines to promote best practice. Qualified as an ISO9000 lead auditor and led a number of internal project audits.
UK lead for competitor product analysis and competitor intelligence, with two reports, covering Japanese PDC and WCDMA. Conducted in-depth electrical and RF measurements on competitor products, and generated tear-down reports to show components and construction methods used. Team member for product program visits to Japan to negotiate Nokia’s technical requirements and schedules for RF components. Assisted with global supplier management for these components, contributing to decisions about preferred suppliers, technical and logistic requirements, and costs. Analysed supplier, component, construction and measurement trends to maintain roadmaps for key cellular phone parameters for Japan and forecast parameters of future product launches.
Designed a number of large multilayer printed circuit boards for telecommunications using Mentor Graphics Board Station, including schematic entry, parts creation, layout and generation of artwork/drill files and documentation. Some boards had critical EMC and isolation constraints. Responsible for defining working methods for SOPHO-S PABX hardware design group, including choice of components and application, reliability requirements, use of design tools (Mentor CAD, PC, VAX), documentation etc. Wrote and maintained a handbook of hardware design procedures. Conducted EMC testing of PABX equipment, diagnosed problems and recommended corrective actions. Tests included RF emissions & susceptibility, ESD, fast transients and AM demodulation. Studied printed circuit board construction techniques, including methods of decoupling and track routing, to reduce potential EMC problems on digital PCBs. This included design and layout of test PCBs, measurements to EN55022 in a screened room, and recommendations for new designs.
Designed subscriber line and telephone line interface circuits for small and medium analogue business telephone exchanges. Created a feature telephone prototype and led discussions with component suppliers in Japan to source custom parts. Laid out a number of printed circuit boards using AutoCAD and Mentor design tools. These included multilayer telecom boards with isolation requirements and RF boards with ground planes. Managed the site’s computer systems, responsible for their procurement and upkeep. This included an Ethernet network of about 40 PCs plus peripherals, and a Mentor Graphics Unix workstation network with design and printed circuit layout software and libraries. Created a PC-based components database and associated menu system for parts selection, to automate parts list generation and bill of material cost calculations.
Designed, built and field tested a number of microwave two-way TV links for monitoring and control of remote surveillance cameras. Planned a UHF radio network, with linked repeater stations, plus base, mobile and portable stations, and supervised its installation in East Africa.
Completed the design of a variety of high performance RF base station duplexing filters in response to requests to tender, and wrote software to automate the process. Researched and wrote a report on electrical safety and electric shock protection in a military environment.