Douglas Butler Email & Phone Number

Barnstable, Ma, Us

Proprietor, Chief of EverythingI solve clients problems. Most problems involve putting sophisticated sensors in horrible places and getting good data from them. This has involved putting electronics inside a bicycle frame, on the bottom of a ship, deep in the mud on the bottom of the ocean, inside a jet engine, and in a zombie costume.Clients include:Seaward Marine Services - Ongoing support and updating of the Imetrix SNAP underwater positioning system I designed earlier. Trained Seaward personnel in SNAP and Lamp Ray system operation and maintenance. Webb Research - Designed and built a 3 Axis Compass testing fixture, and a Li-ion 288 cell modular battery system for the Slocum glider. Established a company wide style for schematics and wiring diagrams which reduced errors in reading drawings.Foster Miller/QinetiQ – Multiple projects including US Navy EOD HULS underwater inspection vehicle upgrade proposal, and SURF autonomous surface vehicle specification of exterior hardware to increase durability and eliminate long lead items. Motiv - Reverse engineered an electric bicycle torque sensor and built an interface PCB to connect the sensor to a servo drive for product development research.Mueller Systems - Designed and built a 10kV ESD test fixture (UL 60950 2.10.3.4) for a Smart Grid electric meter processor. Troubleshooting ESD and lightening strike failures.SeaLite - Design and prototype construction of field instrumentation and specialty electrodes for electrolytic, low energy, low toxicity biofouling control for oceanographic sensors.Zebryk Engineering - Power supply and sensor design, thermal management, firmware and system integration of a shaft alignment and vibration monitoring package to be mounted on the rotor of an F135 jet engine for F-35 Joint Strike Fighter development testing.Alien Encounter - Design and pilot fabrication of wearable electronics and pneumatics for use in a laser tag zombie themed amusement park.

Electrical & multidisciplinary engineering for a variety of oceanographic instruments including RAFOS drifters and the Seascan buoyancy glider. Designed the glider control and science data logger PCBs. Designed a combination snag resistant rudder and flat panel GPS and Iridium antenna including GPS and Iridium antenna modelling using FEKO, prototype construction, and field testing.

Work included: Verifying new components such as compasses and GPS receivers for underwater buoyancy gliders including design of retrofit adapters, test procedures and test fixtures Investigated counterfeit electrical components and developed a fixture for use by Shipping & Receiving to detect fraudulent parts before they were entered into inventory. Development and implementation of a common company wide drawing standard for schematics and assembly drawings Electrical design of a 12 cell Lithium-Ion battery module as part of a 288 total cell in situ chargeable battery pack.

Analog/Power/DSP Hardware design of Chirp Sidescan sonar and Stingray ROV (underwater robot). International field support of Stingray ROV. Long cable power supplies, 10W-1000W. Low cost pressure, temperature and inertial navigation measurement and telemetry.Analog/Power/Digital/Firmware design of components of a Chirp side scan sonar systemRedesign of the Stingray ROV product line including addition of inertial dead reckoning aids, long wire DC power regulation, and high power LED lightingField support of Stingray ROV inspections by Canada Border Services Agency (customs service), and FPSO mooring inspections.

Designed, built, and field tested the SNAP precision underwater positioning system. SNAP is a wideband ultrasonic long baseline system used by the Lamp Ray hull inspection ROV and other Imetrix customers.SNAP maximizes reuse of existing SHARPS positioning software.Designed, built, tested electronics and mechanisms for control of underwater cameras, commercial and military.Wrote firmware and improved calibration software for the SNAP system (embedded C, QBasic, Visual Basic).Performed customer site installation and training for use of SNAP system.

Designed and prototyped oceanographic and industrial sensorsWrote diagnostic and calibration software (QBasic)Designed FSK modems and long wire power management systemsHandled technical service calls, measurement and calibration questionsPerformed customer site repairs, customizations, and training. Headed acoustic current meter product line (3D-ACM)Developed a 3 axis fluxgate compass and calibration facility

Designed and built fiber optic sensors, pressure sensors, spectrometers and refractometers, and stress-optic fiber switches, SBIR I and II

Repaired, customized, and maintained geophysical sensors including current meters, heat flow probes, and tide gauges

Designed Sonar and Acoustic telemetry products (GeoPulse)