Rodney Sinclair Email & Phone Number

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States

building a boat

Malibu, California, United States

Berkeley California

Lead architect for control system hardware and software architecture. Reduced the cost of the room-temperature electronics by a factor of 40 while improving the system performance.

FPGA IP Development:* Micro UAV video system: imager control; target tracking and image display with arbitrary rotation angles and scaling; custom cache to reduce memory bandwidth* Zynq-based color/IR camera system: receive images, ARM/NEON image fusion, output on a micro display* Retro-Directive Ultra-Fast Radar: MATLAB CW phased-array simulation; signal generation, processing, and feedback loop on multiple FPGAs; track metalized ping-pong balls in a non-anechoic laboratory* RF environment simulator: resolve timing errors; reduce build time; test vendor provided IP; modify host PC software to operate new IP* Dual DVI single-link video to DVI double-link video stream converter: custom DDR SDRAM controller to ensure throughput requirements* Firmware maintenance for new camera interfaces: resolve memory bandwidth issues in vendor-provided memory controller* Image stabilization in an almost-full FPGA -- use single multiplier to do two multiplications and one addition* Modified Altera's boot loader: increase NIOS code base size* Ethernet media converter: MII and proprietary LVDS format* Range safety motor cutoff in an Actel FPGA Systems Engineering:* Architecture, modeling, hardware design criteria, hardware selection, hardware design reviews* IP selection criteria and vendor analysis* HARM RF seeker modeling based on flight test data. Recovered target data from previously unusable $50,000 test flights* Custom 4 wire ULPI-based protocol to resolve problems with high pin count cables with power, clock, data, an I2C bus* User manuals and white papers for a COTS VME FPGA board manufacturer. One application was a SAR* Taught Navy class on analytically determining passive radar direction finding accuracy Software Development:* Simple SAR processor in multi-CPU embedded VME system* Multi-camera PC104 situational awareness system: Python and GStreamer; custom GStreamer module to improve reliability Details at http://www.sinclairrf.com/

Woodland Hills, Ca

Developed, implemented, and validated algorithms for the passive radar subsystem and supported systems engineering as a subject matter expert. My most significant analytic contributions were: demonstrating that the subsystem performance could be maintained and the cost could be significantly reduced by reducing the number of channels in the radar receiver; improved direction finding accuracy by developing and implementing algorithms and procedures to improve the fidelity of the subsystem antenna pattern calibration; replaced Monte Carlo analysis with analytic equations for the statistical performance, thereby enabling determination of optimal subsystem operation; and improving the subsystem direction finding estimation throughput by a factor of 100. This last task involved developing an antenna pattern model suitable for parallel implementation, correctly modeling singularities in the antenna patterns, and implementing the algorithm in VHDL on a Xilinx Virtex II Pro FPGA.Various project management roles: Lead design engineer for the algorithm development of the passive radar subsystem; lead design engineer for the prototype digital receiver; and manager for the passive radar subsystem. Managed three multi‑million dollar subcontracts, managed algorithms and software development through successful field testing, reduced subsystem complexity and cost, wrote and maintained hardware specifications, developed test plans, and diagnosed hardware and test configuration problems.

Long Beach, Ca

Led continuing development of image processing software for the top-of-the-line X‑ray luggage screening system. Coordinated the team of six engineers for hardware upgrade, re‑calibration, and software revisions. Devised a display algorithm that was the final ingredient needed to relieve EG&G of $140,000 per month royalty payments. Invented algorithm for an X‑ray food inspection system that had a measured 100% detection rate and 0% false alarm rate. Supported the service and sales departments.

Developed and implemented solutions to physical, intelligence, and software problems. Translated non‑analytic intelligence problems into meaningful, tractable analytic problems. Created algorithms and techniques to analyze and display a chemical or nuclear weapon proliferant status given sparse, uncertain information. Invented new techniques to efficiently compute the top-ranked interdiction targets against complicated procurement networks. Devised and implemented algorithms to quickly compute and display network diagrams. Programmed a multi‑sensor digital telescope that worked on first system assembly.

Phd, Applied Mathematics

Graduate courses in applied mathematics, physics, and engineering: regular and singular perturbation analysis, differential equations.

Bs, Applied Mathematics, Physics

Double major mathematics and physics Graduated with honors in mathematics