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Skills and Experience

If you are interested in the chronological career history for Steven R. Stadler, click here

The following is a description of some of InCircuits Inc. projects:

One of my most significant projects for ETS-Lindgren was to develop the new flagship probe of the Holaday line of probes for ETS-Lindgren, the HI-6105 as well as the laser control unit, for this probe is similar to the HI-6005 , ( you can read the patent to see how the HI-6005 is designed ), except that is has no battery!! It is powered via a laser over the optical fiber interface. This was an idea of mine, and I proposed this to ETS-Lindgren, and they were excited about the idea. Developing the laser controller was very interesting and there were many new obstacles to overcome, and we succeeded in making another excellent product. The laser is modulated in order to accommodate communication to the probe, and the laser power level is adjusted using a closed loop system, where the probe communicates the output voltage of the photovoltaic converter to the controller, and the controller adjusts the laser power for optimal performance. There is also a safety interlock system in order to shut down the laser in case the optical fiber is disconnected during operation, or prevent the laser from turning on if the optical fiber is not connected and the system is turned on.

Photonic Power Systems saw what I was doing for ETS-Lindgren, since they were making one of the components I was using, and asked me if I could work on the development of a proof of concept for them. They wanted to power a GPS unit using laser power over optical fiber in order to collect time stamping information from the GPS system. This is where I gained experience using GPS chip sets.

A friend of mine who is an application engineer for AMI Semiconductor asked me if I could make a demo board that could be used to demonstrate the functionality of some of their industrial chips. This board demonstrated their I2C micro stepping motor driver chip, high power LED driver /relay Octal High Side Driver chip, EEPROM, 16-bit Sigma-Delta ADC, and a custom 8051 based micro controller.

The first project I worked on with Waterstrike Marine was to develop a speedometer calibrator for S&S Cycle ( click on electronics and engine controls, and go to page 11 ). S&S Cycle has been testing one of these continuously for several years, and last I heard, it has still not failed. We have also been developing instrumentation for the Naturevision AquaVu and WellVu lines of products, adding temperature, depth, and compassing measurement capability and using video overlay circuitry to display the data to the user. The Motorized AquaVu product has a high current buck-boost switching power supply and motor controller circuitry. We have also developed proof of concept units that use a wireless data link and operates using very low power, such that the battery life will be over ten years.

I have done work with a medical startup company where their product would apply electronic signals to tissue, and the applied signal was required to maintain charge balance per a standard. I developed a specialized interface circuit that provided synthetic tissue parameters and instrumentation circuitry to supply the measurement signal to a Linear Technology 24 bit Delta-Sigma ADC. With a noise floor of less than 4ppm, we were able to achieve very accurate measurements.

 

This next line is for your company's product description, I'm looking forward to working with you soon!

 

 

Skills and Experience Keywords:

Embedded Digital Signal Processor, Micro-Processor, Micro-Controller, and FPGA Circuit Designs including Intel, Motorola, Atmel, Texas Instruments, PIC, Xilinx, and Altera

Embedded Real Time Software Design in Assembly and C

Low Power, Low Noise, High Precision Analog Sensor Instrumentation Circuitry

Instrumentation of sensors for Earth Field, ELF, VLF, VHF, UHF, Broadband - Induced Current, E-Field, H-Field

Transducer Interface Circuitry - Optical Encoder, NMEA , GPS, Pressure Sensor, Temperature Sensor, Gas Gauging

Battery Management System Design for battery powered portable devices

Low Noise Power Supply Regulation

Laser Power Over Optical Fiber System Design - Light Powered Sensors

Low Noise Printed Circuit Board Design

High Current Power Supply Regulation, Buck/Boost, Modulated Constant Current

High Current Motor Control Circuitry, DC Brushless, Stepper

Low Power Fiber Optic Processor to Processor Serial Communication Circuitry

Micropower RF transceiver wireless data link

Mathematical Linearization Techniques for High Precision Calibration of Sensors

Coordination and Specification of build and test for embedded system hardware

Minnesota licensed Professional Engineer