Work

Current work

I currently work for Knorr-Bremse Rail Systems Ltd. They are big in trains. I work in the Research and Development department in a multidisciplinary team including software, mechanical and electronic engineers.

My current responsibilities are for the design and development of switched-mode power supplies and much of the electronics interfacing to the sensors and the outside world. The requirements of the power supplies require many isolated outputs and so we tend to keep our designs in house.

Background

I have a PhD from the university of Southampton where i was looking at imaging devices to diagnose diseases in the brain, particularly during surgery. While surgery falls short of a cure for most brain tumours it is one of the primary methods of treatment. It has been shown to have a number of tangible benefits to the patients quality of life. The evidence for improved survival is building but there is still some doubt, one of the main reasons is that it is difficult to assess the amount of tumour left after surgery.

One of the existing issues with surgery in the brain is the identification of the diseased tissue. Brain tumours so closely resemble healthy tissue it is very difficult for even the most experienced surgeon to visually tell them apart. Surgery relies on pre-operative imaging which, as the surgery progresses, loses registration with the actual tissue. The aim of my thesis and subsequent research work was to develop a system which can identify diseased tissue optically, without contact, across the whole surgical field in near real-time. This work is still on-going.

Consultancy

I am able to undertake private consultancy work, i have experience in the following areas;

  • Analogue and digital electronics design, including FPGAs and VHDL
  • Power electronics, SMPS, flyback, boost, forward etc.
  • Optical system design, including modelling in Zemax
  • Optical measurement
  • Microprocessor programming, including PICs, AVRs and some DSP
  • Computer programming, languages principally C, C++ and Python
Contact me to discuss your requirements.