Mark Wilson - Examples of the products that I have worked upon.

During my time at FMA (Firth Melvin Automation) I worked on SCADA control systems for the brewing industry. I used PLC control and ladder logic to control large items of plant such as beer clearing centrifuge's.

At Light & Sound Design I worked with large scale control systems with up to 200+ fixtures. DMX512 digital comms protocol is the industry standard however this is an inherently unsafe control system due to a lack of error checking. It is only used to control relatively benign lighting units.

I worked upon the Pan and Tilt drive mechanisms for the revolutionary Icon M Digital luminaire

This is the unit that contains some of the items that I bought to our meeting yesterday evening.

I was also responsible for the control of the colour disks via brushed servomotors with local control

I worked upon the zoom lens assembly which uses toothed belts to drive three zoom elements along a linear slide rail. Initially designed to incorporate stepper motor drive this was later changed to brushed servo motors due to a contractors inability to design acceptably quiet drive software.

I designed the main chassis which is a lost wax aluminium casting that was produced in NY by a company called Armstrong mould.

It incorporates a Digital Micromirror Device (DMD) chip which is a Texas Instruments proprietary technology. When the project was initialised we had to negotiate a licence from TI to use this technology in our industry.

Great care was taken during the design of the Icon M fixture to ensure that it would perform in the same manner as a 'standard' luminaire in order to ease the transition to digital control for the customer.

As a 'spin off' of the development of real time image control software for the Icon M luminaire the M-Box media server was created. I developed the electronics and hardware packaging for this unit.

In 2007 I produced a number of large scale media scrollers for the French singer/songwriter 'Zazie'. Created in quick time they featured a frame arrangement containing LED luminaires with a scroll mechanism which could move from open to rear projection screen to coloured gel filters. In the open state a video wall would be lowered through the aperture.

In 2008 I designed and physically produced a large number of pantograph mechanisms for the artist formerly known as Prince. These were used at the O2 arena.

I worked on site on the South Bank of the Thames in London installing a control system for the Shell Petroleum Electric Storm show. This show used a large wind turbine to generate power to drive the lighting and misting effects installed in the trees along the side of the river.

When Light & Sound Design was taken over by PRG,

primarily for the intellectual property gained during the Icon M project I worked on the design of the

Bad Boy luminaire. This was a stadium fixture which combined the features of a high power followspot and an automated moving light. Exhibiting 48,000 lumens from its 1200w source it was both class leadingly bright and extremely 'green'. It was also renowned for its useability and advanced health monitoring functions.

I designed the Pan/Tilt, cassette style drive modules which use Maxon Brushless EC servo motors for extremely smooth motion. The drive also features an electromagnetic brake and slipper clutch design to aid maintenance. Centralised motor control via Maxon proprietary chipsets and CAN bus data distribution are used.

These fixtures were first used on U2's 360 degree tour of 2009. This is the most successful tour of all time, grossing $558 million, and being watched by 7 million people. 196 fixtures were used on this show. BadBoy was the only automated luminaire used. The throw of up to 400 feet was considered stunning.

The BadBoy fixtures can be seen mounted on the central 'spine' of the stage set. There are further fixtures mounted on each of the legs.

Awaiting hanging on the stage set.

We developed a further automated fixture, the BestBoy, a smaller, lighter studio version of the BadBoy. I worked on much the same aspects of this unit as on the BadBoy.

Looking for another challenge and with an ever growing family to support I moved to Rotadata where I was employed as a design engineer for my motion control knowledge in order to revamp some of the companies aging technology. I quickly moved into a managerial role over the R&D department as I showed aptitude in this area.

Initially involved in the revamp of the automated probe positioning equipment to improve accuracy, resolution, usability and health monitoring functions via the use of an Ethernet data distribution protocol which, in the future will allow us to directly inject probe collected data into the data stream at source, easing installation and making data more easily accessed across the organisation. I addition to adding ease of use the switch to local motor control also simplifies the control unit used with these actuators saving thousands of pounds on multi actuator systems.

I am aware

that these improvements do not appear earth shattering. However, in the ultra safety conscious

aerospace industry changes tend to be incremental rather than revolutionary. The changes that I am implementing within our equipment will save the engine development programmes hundreds of thousands of pounds due to their ease of use improvements, making the equipment extremely attractive to the client.

When I took on the role of R&D manager I was exposed to the workings of all Rotadata products. All were seriously outdated in terms of technology used. However each was still considered to be an industry leader due mainly to our unprecedented level of reliability, again this position is a function of the evolutionary nature of the industry.

I work closely with industry experts from Rolls Royce in developing Blade Tip Timing, the system which allows all blades on a rotating rotor disk to be measured for time of arrival compared to a once per rev signal which allows calculation of the distortion of the blade. In conjunction with FEA analysis this enables the stress within the blade to be determined in real time. This data allows engine order resonances to be discovered along with functions such as blade twist/untwist or stall conditions. Over time crack propagation can be monitored and the engine can be shut down prior to a catastrophic outcome. Obviously this information is vital during engine development and to engine operators.

Two Blade Tip Timing test / development rigs

Rakes and probes used during engine testing usually require huge amounts of either cabling or pneumatic tubing to get data from the engine to the data acquisition. This is installed at great cost and again it is a function of the sedentary nature of the industry that has accepted this situation for many years. I have developed both temperature and pressure rakes with cold junction or pressure

monitor built in. Along with an ethernet module installation and use is now far easier, faster and therefore cheaper.

Taken in isolation, and in comparison to the machinery that you are building at Simworx these gas turbine instrumentation products do not seem to be hugely impressive. What IS impressive is the environment that these pieces of equipment live and are expected to operate in. Gas path temperatures within a running turbine section can be in the region of 1600 degrees C - higher than the melting point of most of the alloys used during construction! Novel solutions to cooling have to be derived. Forces generated on the PCB in one of our telemetry units rotating at around 50,000 RPM can be almost 70,000g! An average resistor with a mass of 1g will exert a force of 69kg - It is important to consider this g loading during design.

I also design trade show stands for the business - the above rotating LP compressor unit out of a Harrier Jump Jet winning best stand at the ASME show in Dusseldorf.

The planned stand for 2016 is a little larger and has the complete rotor system out of the Rolls-Royce Pegasus engine (minus the front fan) - this unit is currently in build