Roberta (Bobbi) Webber-Manners Email & Phone Number

Toronto, On, Ca

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Bobbi's current role is Software Project Manager for Kraken's sonar systems. This includes Aquapix MINSAS, our world-leading Synthetic Aperture Sonar, which is capable an industry-leading 1.9 x 2.1 cm constant Ultra HD resolution across the entire swath out to ranges of 200 meters per side, along with simultaneous 6 cm x 6 cm bathymetry. Bobbi is also responsible for leading the software team making continuous improvements to the Kraken Sub-Bottom Imager and Acoustic Corer systems, which are both used to image below the sea bed.Current software projects:- Real-Time Synthetic Aperture Sonar (RTSAS)- Sub-Bottom Imager (SBI)- Acoustic CorerKraken's software development team uses an agile Sprint approach to deliver continuous improvements to Kraken's sonar products. This includes the development of entirely new subsystems, and the maintenance and evolution of existing applications. Our software stack is primarily based on C++, CUDA and Javascript.

Toronto, Canada Area

Kraken’s Acoustic Signal Processing (ASPG) group focuses on developing passive sonar technologies for naval and civilian applications.The Acoustic Signal Processing Group (ASPG) has decades of experience in developing passive sonar signal processors and simulators, as well as providing lifecycle support for products in service with sophisticated naval customers.The team uses Nvidia CUDA technologies to develop high performance signal processing applications for embedded processors. CUDA allows us to leverage massively parallel GPU architectures to achieve high throughput with much lower power consumption than conventional CPU-based approaches within a far smaller physical package. Algorithms such as beamforming for fixed or towed arrays, frequency analysis, generation of analysis displays, detection and tracking may be efficiently performed using this GPU-centric approach.The ASPG is working to combine passive sonar signal processing with deep learning in order to substantially automate the classification of contacts, which is traditionally extremely operator-intensive. Deep learning neural network methods are well-suited to the Nvidia GPU architecture, which opens the door to performing real-time classification of signals on board an AUV with a relatively limited power budget.

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

The project greatly enhanced the command and control functions available in the SAPPS sonar post analysis system and integrated the SAPPS Tactical Display with the existing Swedish Armed Forces marine command and control network. (See below for more info on SAPPS.)Roberta was responsible for the entire project lifecycle, including initial discussions with the customer (FMV), preparation of the proposal, system design, coding, formal testing, delivery, set-to-work, customer training and all documentation activities. The project concluded with Site Acceptance Testing and customer training in Stockholm, Sweden.A new tactical server daemon was developed for Linux to record command and control data and distribute it to individual Operator Workstations. The Operator Workstation Tactical Window code was enhanced to allow this command and control data to be displayed to the operator in the form of target tracks, target bearings, areas and pointers. The Operator Workstation code was also extended to allow operators to declare new tracks or bearings, or to update existing tactical objects by associating them with sonar analysis cursors. The code was implemented in C++ in accordance with the existing SAPPS codebase.Site Acceptance Test completed successfully in December 2017. Thanks team!!

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

The Underwater Acoustic Analysis System Refresh (UAAS) project provided mid-life refresh to our existing UAAS, which had been in service with the German Federal Navy (Bundeswehr) since 2005. The primary aim of this project was to replace the existing hardware (which has become hard to support after nine years in service) in order to maintain the function for another ten years or more until the system is scheduled for a complete replacement.The legacy UAAS signal processor hardware consisted of a cluster of Apple XServe G5 servers, interconnected with Infiniband. This was replaced with Intel architecture servers using 10GbE. In addition to porting the Signal Processor Software to this new platform, the UAAS code base was rebased on the latest version of Array's generic Post-Analysis System. This rebasing provided additional functionality as well as incorporating multiple fixes and improvements made to the mainline since 2006.Aside from the C++ Signal Processing Software, I was also responsible for updating the Database Software which is based on Microsoft technologies - Access, MS SQL Server and Visual Basic.

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

The Post-Analysis System & Training (PAST) project delivered a sonar post-analysis system to serve as an introductory capability for a South East Asian navy. The system is based on the technologies developed for the SAPPS post-analysis system (see below for details).Bobbi ported the SAPPS Signal Processing Software (SPS) to a new and more cost-effective hardware platform based on Intel Xeon processors with 10Gb ethernet interconnect. Preliminary benchmark results indicate that the achievable signal processing throughput is much better than projected.

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

The aim of this project was to develop an advanced beamforming algorithm and to integrate it into Array's existing Sonar Acoustic Post Processing System (SAPPS). The scope of the work has included prototyping of the algorithm in Matlab, coding an implementation in C++ using the VSIPL and LAPACK mathematical libraries and integrating with the existing SAPPS beamformer architecture. The new beamformer has passed the Factory Acceptance Test in Stockholm in August 2013, and the Site Acceptance Test was successfully concluded at Muskö in November 2013.In addition to this assignment, Bobbi presented a Technical Training Course of four weeks total duration to a number of scientists at the customer's site, which included theoretical instruction and hands-on assistance in writing extensions for the SAPPS system. Later in the year Bobbi completed a one week Maintainer Training course to assist System Administrators and other personnel in supporting the operation of the SAPPS RTSP real-time analysis system, which is in use 24 / 7.

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Light Version of the Next Generation COMPASS SystemProject: Intelligent Transportation System for Province of Ontario.Customer: Ontario Ministry of Transportation (MTO).Technologies: Google Web Toolkit (GWT), Java (J2EE), Java Message Service (JMS), Java Database Connectivity (JDBC), Oracle database, Oracle Application Server, Redhat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).The Next Generation COMPASS System (see 'SIDM Project') went live in January 2011 and now performs all Intelligent Transportation System functions in the Ministry of Transportation's Central Ontario Region. Following this success, the NGCS-Lite project aims to build a lightweight version of the NGCS technology for deployment in outlying regions of the Province, especially the MTO Eastern and Western Regions.For this project, an entirely new web-based operator workstation application was developed from scratch, using the Google Web Toolkit (GWT) framework, which allowed us to code both the client and server side code in Java.The new user interface was integrated with the existing Database Manager and Dynamic Message Sign Device Manager from NGCS, all intercommunicating using JMS messaging and a shared Oracle database.As of October 2013, acceptance has been completed and the integrated system has been deployed to MTO Eastern Region (Ottawa, Bancroft), Western Region (London) and North East Region Traffic Operation Centres.

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

CANTASS Mission Simulator UpdateProject: Sonar Mission Simulator for Training of Naval Sonar AnalystsCustomer: Department of National Defence / Canadian NavyTechnologies: C, C++, Ada, MySQL database, vector mathematics using VSIPL, sonar signal processing, Linux operating systems.The CMSU project aims to provide a comprehensive hardware refresh for the CANTASS Mission Simulator sonar training system that Array delivered to the Canadian Navy around a decade ago.The Mission Simulation Execution (MSE) code, which is responsible for computing synthetic sonar signals was completely rewritten in C++ based on a Linux platform, using the VSIPL vector math library. This new component has been integrated with the existing Simulation Management (SM) application, which is was ported from Solaris and Oracle to Linux and MySQL. Together the ported SM and the new MSE subsystems form the CMSU Instructor Station.With this refresh, the system has been migrated from a costly and hard to support mixed architecture including VME-based PowerPC signal processors, legacy i860 signal processors, SPARC workstations and x86 servers to a much more economic and supportable PC environment. The complete system now comprised a PC for each Instructor Station, a PC for each instance of the MSE and a PC for each Student Station, all running the Linux operating system.CMSU was accepted and installed at CFB Esquimalt and CFB Halifax on schedule in May 2013.

Toronto, On

Radarsat-2 ToolboxThe Radarsat-2 Toolbox (RSTB) builds on the established Next ESA SAR Toolbox (NEST) which Array has developed for the European Space Agency. The RSTB work was sponsored by the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).The Next ESA SAR Toolbox (NEST) is a user friendly open source toolbox for reading, post-processing, analysing and visualising the large archive of data (from Level 1) from ESA SAR missions including ERS-1 & 2, ENVISAT and in the future Sentinel-1. In addition, NEST supports handling of products from third party missions including JERS-1, ALOS PALSAR, TerraSAR-X, Radarsat-2 and Cosmo-SkymedThe Radarsat-2 Toolbox (RSTB) offers tools to exploit fully-polarimetric Radarsat-2 datasets, including:- Polarimetric decompositions- Supervised and unsupervised classification- PolInSAR processing of multi-pass data- Interferometry- ... and lots of other good stuff!

Toronto, On

Systems Integration and Database Management for the Next Generation COMPASS Software Project: Intelligent Transportation System for Ontario's 400-series highways.Customer: Ontario Ministry of Transportation.Technologies: Java (J2EE), Java Message Service (JMS), Java Database Connectivity (JDBC), Oracle database, Oracle Application Server, Redhat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).Responsibilities included extensive consultation with the customer, performing requirements analysis and system design. Performed all coding and unit testing, prepared all documentation and performed integration with other system components at the customer's site.The Next Generation COMPASS System (NGCS) went live in January 2011. It now controls the ITS infrastructure on Ontario's 400-series highways.

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

SAR Simulation Toolkit for Aselsan (SSTBA)Project: Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) ToolkitCustomer: Aselsan, TurkeyTechnologies: Matlab, radar signal processing.Project Engineer for the development of additional SAR processing capabilities to be added to Array's SAR Simulation Toolbox project. Lead Instructor for two one-week courses in radar and SAR technology, held in Ankara, Turkey.

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

SAR Simulation Toolkit for the Republic of Korea (STB Korea)Project: Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) ToolkitCustomer: Agency for Defense Development, Republic of Korea.Technologies: Matlab, radar signal processing.Lead Instructor for two one-week courses in radar and SAR technology, held in Daejeon, Republic of Korea.

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Real-Time Sonar Processor (RTSP)Project: Real-Time Sonar Analysis SystemCustomers: Royal Swedish NavySee the entry for the SAPPS project for full details.

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Sonar Acoustic Post-Processing System (SAPPS)Project: Sonar Post-Analysis Systems.Customers: Royal Swedish NavyTechnologies: C++, parallel processing using MPI, vector mathematics using VSIPL, sonar signal processing, Yellow Dog Linux, PowerPC G4/G5 and AMD Opteron processors, Infiniband and Myrinet networking technologies.Developed innovative and novel time-division multiplexing technique for sonar signal processing applications. The resulting architecture has been used as the basis for an entire family of sonar processors. Advantages of this architecture include the ability to scale from one to many processors without code change.Responsibilities included architecture design, overall design responsibility for the Signal Processing sub-system, hardware troubleshooting, supervision of software implementation and unit test, system integration, installation at customer sites, set-to-work and acceptance testing, conducting customer training courses, providing post-installation support and customer liaison.A number of signal-processors have been implemented using this architecture, ranging in size from one to 40 processors.

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Underwater Acoustic Analysis System (UAAS)Project: Sonar Post-Analysis Systems.Customers: German Federal Navy (Bundeswehr)See the entry for the SAPPS project for full details.

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

CANTASS Mission Simulator (Pacific) (CMS(P))Project: Sonar Mission Simulator for Training of Naval Sonar AnalystsCustomer: Department of National Defence / Canadian NavyTechnologies: C, Ada, Oracle database, parallel processing using shared memory primitives, vector mathematics using Mercury SAL, sonar signal processing, Mercury MCOS and Sun Solaris operating systems, PowerPC G3 and SPARC processors, Mercury RACE++ switched interconnect.Ported sonar ocean model and acoustic simulation from legacy i860 platform to Mercury PowerPC G3 architecture, while implementing improvements to the simulation algorithm. The acoustic simulation employed 36 PowerPC CPUs. Integrated the new sonar simulator into the complete Mission Simulator.

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Replacement Maritime Patrol Aircraft Synthetic Aperture Radar (RMPA)Project: Synthetic Aperture Radar Signal ProcessorCustomer: Racal Radar Defence Electronics (now Thales), United KingdomTechnologies: C, parallel processing, vector mathematics using Wideband library, radar signal processing, Analog Devices SHARC processor.Designed and developed SAR signal processor for the Thales Searchwater 2000MR radar for the UK RAF Nimrod MRA4 program. Implemented SAR processor using 40 SHARC CPUs. Developed low-level communication and operating system code. No commercial operating system was employed.

Bracknell, United Kingdom

I worked for a full year at ICL, Bracknell, UK before beginning my M.Eng. degree program in 1990. Following this year of work experience, I successfully applied for sponsorship from ICL for my undergraduate studies. As a result of this arrangement, I had the opportunity to work at ICL each Summer for the next four years where I gained experience in a variety of different positions.

D.Phil., Engineering Science

My D.Phil. research focused on the development of a novel technique for non-invasive measurement of fluid flows known as "Doppler Global.

M.Eng., Engineering And Computing Science, First

I received First Class Honours in Engineering and Computing Science (ECS), and scored the top grade in the the Final ECS Examination.