Sandy Kellagher Email & Phone Number

Chichester

Havant

Snell Advanced Media designs, develops and manufactures professional video processing equipment for the broadcast industry. Within the industry, Snell has an international reputation for the technical excellence of its products. My position at Snell is a technical leadership role covering all matters relating to software development.

TAG Electronic Systems designs, develops and manufactures embedded control systems for motor racing, and is closely associated with the McLaren Formula 1 team. Each season TAG develops a new control system for McLaren to work with the new chassis and engine. In addition, TAG provides control systems for other teams and race series, eg touring cars.My work at TAG was to design and develop embedded real-time code for the McLaren chassis control unit (MCU) and for an on-car data logging system. Both these systems were based on Infineon 16-bit microcontrollers and Analog Devices DSPs, and clearly had to satisfy stringent real-time and safety requirements. At the same time, to keep pace with McLaren’s own continuous development programme, new software releases were required every week or so. New code was tested in the lab with hardware simulators prior to release, then run on the car during a testing session, before finally running in a race. At the time, the ban on advanced driver aids had not yet been introduced, and the chassis control unit provided a fully automatic gearbox (including pre-programmed gear changes based on circuit position), drive-by-wire electronic throttle (including traction control) and active suspension (to minimise drag on the straights and roll in the corners).

Smith System Engineering (now re-branded Detica) was a technology consultancy that carries out a wide range of work, ranging from theoretical ‘blue skies’ research for the MoD to practical procurement support consultancy for customers such as British Gas and the emergency services. Most of my work was in procurement support, covering mobile data and trunked private mobile radio systems. A typical project would include user requirements capture, preparation of a technical specification, evaluation of tenders from prospective suppliers and selection of a supplier. An important pre-requisite for this work was the ability to communicate effectively at all levels in the client organisationm, including presentation of results to senior management.

Initially developed microcode for a ‘bit-slice’ digital signal processor to implement a multi-tone DQPSK modem for NATO Link 11, a tactical naval communications link.In November 1987, was seconded to the USA as part of a small team to work at Raytheon on a joint US/UK military programme, developing microcode for a ‘bit-slice’ digital signal processor to implement a multi-tone FSK modem for a strategic military satellite communications system.