About the Authors
Steven Arms (Online Chapter: Wireless Systems) is a contributor to Sensor Technology Handbook. Mr. Arms received his Master's Degree in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Vermont in 1983. He has been awarded 25 US patents and has over 10 pending. He has contributed to 18 journal publications, as well as 44 abstracts/presentations, in areas of advanced instrumentation, wireless sensing, and energy harvesting. Mr. Arms is founder and President of MicroStrain, Inc., a Vermont manufacturer of micro-displacement sensors, inertial sensing systems, and wireless data logging nodes for recording and transmitting strain, vibration, temperature, and orientation data. MicroStrain has been recognized as an innovator in the sensors industry. As of 2008, the firm has received nine Best of Sensors Expo Gold awards for its new products. MicroStrain has received funding from the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Army to develop wireless sensor networks which use strain energy harvesting to eliminate battery maintenance.
Craig Aszkler (Chapter 5) is a contributor to Sensor Technology Handbook. Craig is a Vibration Products Division Manager at PCB Piezotronics, Inc.
Stuart Ball, P.E. (Chapter 3 and the Appendix), author of Analog Interfacing to Embedded Microprocessor Systems, is an electrical engineer with over 20 years of experience in electronic and embedded systems. He is currently employed with Seagate Technologies, a manufacturer of computer hard disc drives.
Dr. G.M.S de Silva (Chapters 1 and 8), author of Basic Metrology for ISO9000 Certification, is a Chartered Engineer (C.Eng) and holds degrees in Physics, B.Sc (Hons), from the University of Ceylon; Instrument Technology, M.Sc, from the University of Technology, Loughborough; and Electrical Materials, Ph.D, from the Imperial College of Science, Medicine and Technology, University of London, where he was also employed as a researcher in surface roughness metrology. Dr. de Silva has held senior positions in the fields of metrology, standardization, and quality management in a number of national and international organizations during the past 35 years. At present, he is the Chief Technical Advisor for a number of United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) projects for development of metrology and standardization of infrastructure in the South Asian and South East Asian region, (Bangladesh, Nepal, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Lao PDR). His past experiences include Associate Professor and Manager, Measurement Standards Laboratory, Research Institute, King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia; Director General of Sri Lanka Standards Institution, the national standards body of Sri Lanka; UNIDO international metrology consultant to the African Regional Organization for Standardization (ARSO); and Commonwealth Fund for Technical Co-operation consultant in metrology to Grenada Bureau of Standards, Grenada. He is a long standing member of the Institute of Measurement and Control, United Kingdom, and a member of a number of other technical societies.
Tony Fischer-Cripps (Chapters 4, 9, 11, and 13) is the author of Newnes Interfacing Companion. Tony is a Project Leader in the Division of Telecommunications and Industrial Physics of the Commonwealth Scientific & Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), Australia. He was previously lecturer, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia, and has also worked for the National Institute of Standards and Technology, USA.
Timothy Geiger (Chapter 5) is a contributor to Sensor Technology Handbook. Timothy graduated with a BBA from the University of Notre Dame in 1987 and a MBA from the University of Chicago in 1992. He originally worked in various accounting and financial positions prior to joining PCB Piezotronics, Inc. Currently, Tim holds the role of Division Manager for the Industrial Sensors Division.
Dr. Prof. Dogan Ibrahim (Chapter 7) is the author of Microcontroller-Based Temperature Monitoring Control. He is currently the Head of the Computer Engineering Department at the Near East University in Cyprus. He is the author of over 50 technical books and 200 technical articles. Prof. Ibrahim's interests are in the field of microprocessor and microcontroller based automatic control, digital signal processing, and distant engineering education.
Kevin James (Chapters 14 and 15 and Online Chapter: Sampling), author of PC Interfacing and Data Acquisition, has a background in Astrophysics and Applied Nuclear Science. As a research physicist he designed numeric models for applications as diverse as radiometric thermometry and high-energy neutron dosimetry. He also spent much of his time developing computer-based laboratory instrumentation for use in geological and archaeological research. Since 1988, Dr. James has specialized in producing data-acquisition software for a broad range of manufacturing and quality control applications. He has designed test and measurement systems for the aircraft, automobile, rail, process-engineering, and civil-engineering sectors and has developed interfacing software for the PC as well as real-time firmware for a variety of embedded systems. He has also designed and coded a number of Internet-based applications. Dr. James is a Fellow of the Institution of Analysts and Programmers and has been a freelance consultant since 1991. He has published numerous academic papers and written extensively on the subjects of data acquisition, control, and interfacing. He is currently engaged in database design.
Thomas Kenny (Chapter 2) is a contributor to Sensor Technology Handbook. Thomas has always been interested in the properties of small structures. His Ph.D research was carried out in the Physics Department at UC Berkeley where he focused on a measurement of the heat capacity of a monolayer of helium atoms. After graduating, his research at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory focused on the development of a series of microsensors that use tunneling displacement transducers to measure small signals. Currently, at Stanford University, research in Tom's group covers many areas including MEMS devices to detect small forces, studies of gecko adhesion, micromechanical resonators, and heat transfer in microchannels. Tom teaches several courses at Stanford, including Introduction to Sensors. Tom's hobbies include Ultimate Frisbee, hiking, skiing, and an occasional friendly game of poker.
Walt Kester (Chapters 12 and 17) is a corporate staff applications engineer at Analog Devices. In his more than 35 years at Analog Devices, he has designed, developed, and given applications support for high-speed ADCs, DACs, SHAs, op amps, and analog multiplexers. Besides writing many papers and articles, he prepared and edited eleven major applications books which form the basis for the Analog Devices world-wide technical seminar series including the topics of op amps, data conversion, power management, sensor signal conditioning, and mixed-signal and practical analog design techniques. He is also the editor of The Data Conversion Handbook, a 900+ page comprehensive book on data conversion, published in 2005 by Elsevier. Walt has a BSEE from NC State University and a MSEE from Duke University.
Professor Michael Laughton (Chapters 6 and 10) BASc, (Toronto), Ph.D (London), DSc.Eng (London), FR.Eng, FIEE, C.Eng, is the editor of Electrical Engineer's Reference Book, 16th Edition. He is Emeritus Professor of Electrical Engineering and former Dean of Engineering of the University of London and Pro-Principal of Queen Mary and Westfield College. He is currently the UK representative on the Energy Committee of the European National Academies of Engineering and a member of the energy and environment policy advisory groups of the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Royal Society, the Institution of Electrical Engineers, and the Power Industry Division Board of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. He has acted as Specialist Adviser to UK Parliamentary Committees in both upper and lower Houses on alternative and renewable energy technologies and on energy efficiency. He was awarded The Institution of Electrical Engineers Achievement Medal in 2002 for sustained contributions to electrical power engineering.
Chris Nadovich (Chapter 16) is the author of Synthetic Instrumentation. Chris is a working engineer with over 20 years of experience in the design and development of advanced instrumentation for RF and microwave test. He owns a private consulting company, Julia Thomas Associates that is involved in many electronic automated test-related design and development efforts at the forefront of the Synthetic Instrumentation revolution. In addition to his hardware engineering work, Nadovich is an accomplished software engineer. He owns and manages an Internet provider company, JTAN.COM. Nadovich received BSEE and MEEE degrees from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1981. While working in industry as an engineer, he was also a competitive bicycle racer. In 1994, Nadovich united his skills as an engineer with his love for bicycle racing when he designed the 250 meter velodrome used for the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. He currently resides in Sellersville, PA along with his wife, Joanne, and their two children.
E.A. Parr (Chapters 6 and 10) M.Sc, C.Eng, MIEE, MInstMC CoSteel Sheerness, is a contributor to Electrical Engineer's Reference Book, 16th Edition.
Alex Porter (Chapters 25 and 26) is the author of Accelerated Testing and Validation. Alex is the Engineering Development Manager for Entela, Inc. and has been with the company since 1992. Since 1996, he has been developing accelerated testing methods for mechanical components and systems. Alex has three patents related to accelerated testing equipment and has published over thirty articles, technical papers, and presentations on accelerated testing. Alex is chairing an SAE committee that is writing an Accelerated Testing Supply Chain Implementation Guide. His work in the past has included implementation of FEA in a laboratory setting and development of a thermal management system for an advanced data acquisition package developed by NASA's Drydon Flight Research facility. Alex is a member of SAE and IEEE. He holds a B.S. in Aircraft Engineering and an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering, both from Western Michigan University.
Edward Ramsden, BSEE, (Online Chapter: Hall-Effect Sensors) is the author of Hall-Effect Sensors. Ed has worked with Hall-effect sensors since 1988. His experiences in this area include designing sensor integrated circuits and assembly-level products as well as developing novel magnetic processing techniques. He has authored or co-authored more than 30 technical papers and articles and holds ten U.S. patents in the areas of electronics and sensor technology.
Steve Scheiber (Chapters 18, 19, and 20), author of Building a Successful Board-Test Strategy and Principal of ConsuLogic Consulting Services, has spent more than 30 years exploring electronics manufacturing and test issues at all levels. A noted author and lecturer, Steve has served as Contributing Technical Editor and Senior Technical Editor for Test & Measurement World, for more than 25 years, and as Editor of Test & Measurement Europe. His textbook, Building a Successful Board-Test Strategy, published by Butterworth-Heinemann, is now in its second edition. Steve wrote companion books, published by Quale Press, including A Six-Step Economic-Justification Process for Tester Selection, Economically Justifying Functional Test, and Building an Intelligent Manufacturing Line (all of which are available directly from ConsuLogic). He has also written hundreds of technical articles for a variety of trade publications. Steve's areas of expertise include manufacturing and test strategy development, test and general-purpose software, economics, and test-program management. Steve has spent much time in the past 15 years teaching seminars on economics and cost-justification of capital expenditures to engineers and managers. His other seminar and technical-article subjects have included automatic-program generation, concurrent engineering, design-for-testability, simulation, device and board verification, inspection, environmental stress screening, and VXI. Steve holds Bachelor's and Master-of-Engineering degrees from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Chris Townsend (Online Chapter: Wireless Systems) is a contributor to Sensor Technology Handbook. He is Vice President of Engineering for MicroStrain, Inc., a manufacturer of precision sensors and wireless sensing instrumentation. Chris's current main focus is on research and development of a new class of ultra low power wireless sensors for industry. Chris has been involved in the design of a number of products, including the world's smallest LVDT, inertial orientation sensors, and wireless sensors. He holds over 25 patents in the area of advanced sensing. Chris has a degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Vermont.
Douglas Warne (Chapters 6 and 10) is the editor of Electrical Engineers Reference book, 16th Edition. Warne graduated from Imperial College London in 1967 with a 1st-class honors degree in electrical engineering. During 1963–1968 he had a student apprenticeship with AEI Heavy Plant Division, Rugby. He is currently self-employed, and has taken on such projects as Coordinated LINK PEDDS program for DTI and the electrical engineering, electrical machines and drives, and ERCOS programs for EPSRC. Warne initiated and managed the NETCORDE university-industry network for identifying and launching new R&D projects. He also acted as coordinator for the industry-academic funded ESR Network, held the part-time position of Research Contract Coordinator for the High Voltage and Energy Systems group at University of Cardiff, and monitored several projects funded through the DTI Technology Program.
Tim Williams (Chapters 21, 22, 23, and 24) is the author of The Circuit Designer's Companion, 2nd Edition. He works at Elmac Services which provides consultancy and training on all aspects of EMC, including design, testing, and the application of standards to companies manufacturing electronic products and concerned about the implications of the EMC Directive. Tim Williams gained a B.Sc in Electronic Engineering from Southampton University in 1976. He has worked in electronic product design in various industry sectors including process instrumentation and audio visual control. He was design group leader at Rosemount Ltd. before leaving in 1990 to start Elmac Services. He is also the author of EMC for Product Designers (now in its fourth edition, Elsevier 2006), and has presented numerous conference papers and seminars. He is also author of EMC for Systems & Installations with Keith Armstrong. He is an EMC technical assessor for UKAS and SWEDAC.
Jon Wilson, (Chapters 2, 5, 12, and Online Chapter: Wireless Systems) is editor of Sensor Technology Handbook; Test Engineer, Chrysler Corporation; Test Engineer, ITT Cannon Electric Co.; Environmental Lab Manager, Motorola Semiconductor Products; Applications Engineering Manager and Marketing Manager, Endevco Corporation; Principal Consultant, Jon S. Wilson Consulting, LLC; Fellow Member, Institute of Environmental Sciences and Technology; Sr. Member, ISA; and Sr. Member, SAE. He has authored several text books and short course handbooks on testing and instrumentation and many magazine articles and technical papers. He is a regular presenter of measurement and testing short courses for Endevco, Technology Training, Inc., the International Telemetry Conference, and commercial and government organizations.