Conceptual and System Design
1. Conceptual Design
The design of a system begins with the conceptual design phase, where various overall approaches to meeting the goals of a system are devised, evaluated, and compared and where a specific approach is selected for more detailed design work.
An engineer effective at conceptual design is one who has knowledge of many previously known solutions as well as the creativity to be able to combine previously known elements into new combinations. Sometimes an old solution is just what is required to solve the new problem; in other cases, a truly new idea is needed. In either case, it really helps to be familiar with what has been done in the past (“the literature”) and to have a wide range of interests. These are some of my strong points; for instance, I own an extensive personal library, including the last 25 years of the professional journals Applied Optics and Optical Engineering, and I maintain online access to the latest publications from three major professional societies, OSA, IEEE, and SPIE.
Some of the particularly creative, yet practical, concepts that I have generated in the past are:
Use of an internal interferometer in an optical fiber based remote Laser Doppler anemometer head to correct for phase errors due to mechanical stresses on the fibers.
Custom accessories for use with standard optical tooling and an associated procedure for prealignment of a very large annular laser resonator to within the maximum misalignment that could be handled by an alignment interferometer.
An eyetracker based on simultaneous analog and digital signal processing of a real time video signal.
Data processing algorithms that correct topographic differential absorption lidar data for the differential reflectance of the topography as well as the differential absorption of the atmosphere.
A method of achieving simultaneous wide spectral bandwidth and large angular acceptance in the operation of an optical receiver using a non-linear optics upconverter; something considered impractical, if not impossible, in the literature.
A generalization of the concept of telecentricity which leads to new forms of optical systems having an important constant magnification property.
2. System Design
After a design concept for a system is chosen, the detailed design must be created. A key to this process, often neglected, is system engineering.
Some of the types of systems that I have designed are:
Optical alignment
Interferometers
Video signal processing (analog and digital)
Medical (opthalmological) instrumentation
Test scene generators
Airborne instrumentation
Laser Doppler velocimetry, Laser transit anemometry
Lidars
Radiometers
Spectrometers
Optical metrology
Optical thermometry
While many of the above may appear to be complicated systems, perhaps not of interest to you, I also design and analyze simple systems.
Specific things that I may be able to do for you:
Quickly identify the key issues in your system design, and determine what, if anything, has been overlooked.
Provide the necessary analysis to support your design.
In large programs, provide an effective interface between electronic, optical, mechanical subteams.
Help you get organized, or critique what you have done.
I can't promise to anticipate every problem, though I have been successful in doing so in many cases. What is certain is that I have done a lot of this (thinking through issues and anticipating problems), and have saved customers much trouble.
Last, but not least, I am good at asking the right questions.
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Copyright © 2002, David F. Schaack. All Rights Reserved. |