Mark Edward Sutton                                                Degree: B. S. Electrical Engineering

 6731 General Haig St.                                              Carnegie-Mellon University 1984

 New Orleans, LA 70124                                            Birthdate: Dec. 2 1961

 (504) 283-9740                                                        

email: marksu@spectra-one.com                          

Personal web page: http://www.spectra-one.com

 

College Course History:

 

CMU core of required Electrical Engineering and Computer courses, In-depth sequences in economics and biomedical engineering.  Also sequences in law and technical writing.  A complete transcript will be provided upon request.

 

Employment History:

 

Mar. 2000 to present:  Sr. Software Engineer for Axonn LLC.  Responsible for numerous embedded software projects for Axonn’s OEM and End-To-End solution wireless data products.  At Axonn I programmed digital controllers ranging from very small microcontrollers to powerful Linux Based embedded control systems.

 

Jan. 1991 to present:  Self employed (part time) under business name Spectra One.  Free lance production of full digital audio recordings for demos, auditions etc.  Also specializing in embedded software consulting and Linux networking programming and consulting.  Most recent significant client: Advanced Metering Data Systems, LLC.

 

Nov. 1984 to Mar. 2000: Sr. Electrical Engineer for Laitram Corporation. Team leader of group responsible for selection, design,   and programming of computer vision, robotic, and industrial control systems for use in food processing applications.

 

Numerous part time jobs during college and high school, most technical/engineering related.

 

Knowledge and Skills

 

Embedded Device Control Experience (Axonn LLC.):

 

·         Embedded software designer for Axonn MMT project.  The latest generation of ultra-miniature tracker device.

·         Contributing writer and current maintainer of embedded software for the AXTracker product.  Made all software modifications/ports necessary for migration to Generation 3 hardware.  Product information can be found at: http://www.axtracker.com/

·         Lead digital designer and embedded software developer for “DARCI”, a hand-held self-contained programming tool for the AXTracker.

·         Responsible for processor selection and embedded software for the “Axess Transmitter” product line.  This is a wireless, spread-spectrum, battery operated industrial monitoring and control device.  The embedded processor used is a TI MSP430 series microcontroller.  Key design criteria were extremely flexible configuration for industrial control and monitoring and extremely low current usage for multi-year battery life.  The product description can be found at:  http://www.axonn.com/gpage2.html

·         Developed all software and selected the microprocessor for an RTU interface to Axonn’s 2 watt narrow band cellular data collection transmitter.  This is also a battery-operated device featuring multi-year battery life and uses the TI MSP 430 series microcontroller.

·         Developed the tasking and control software for a 100 milliwatt 868 megahertz telemetry transceiver for the European market.  This software featured a critically timed interface to an Atmel DSP to encode and decode an Axonn proprietary 16 symbol narrow-band digital modulation format.  The microcontroller was a Temic/Atmel 87c54.

·         Re-designed a legacy spread-spectrum receiver circuit, used in a building environment control application to use a new microcontroller when the legacy controller used in the circuit became unobtainable.  Extensive and critical microcode re-timing was required to achieve the correct spread-spectrum chipping sequence.  The microcontroller used was a Cygnal C8051F series.

·         Designed, at the board level a PC-104 based, Linux based, controller for a Cellular Telemetry system.  This is a 10-channel system utilizing an Axonn proprietary 16-symbol modulation scheme.  Wrote all of the software applications and custom drivers specific to controlling the cellular transceiver running on that controller.  Key design criteria were extensive self-diagnostics and the ability to recover from hardware failures.  Designed a custom embedded Linux installation and run-time environment for the controller.  A custom SNMP MIB was provided for remote monitoring.  Virtually all software and firmware in the system, including the Linux kernel and run time environment itself, was designed to be remotely upgradable. 

·         Developed custom software for an “MCTS” (Master Cellular Transceiver System) Linux based server.  This software served as the master controller for a cluster of Cellular Transceivers.

 

Recent Consulting work for Advanced Metering Data Systems:

 

·         Wrote all the software, and was a team member for the hardware redesign for a second generation Cellular Telemetry System.  This was a second generation version of the second-to-last bullet item in the Axonn section, above.

·         Wrote all the custom software for an “NC” (Network Controller) server for the cellular telemetry system.  The NC software employed a custom stack-based interpreter to route messages from many towers to many different customers.  This software, which features extensive user configurability, routes each message to the correct customer, using a stack-based engine that can filter off any combination of data in the message at a byte-by-byte level.  In addition, the software can redact information, at a byte-by-byte level from messages.  The redaction is useful for, for example, removing customer business data from a message while leaving RF performance metrics intact, so that AMDS can track system performance without seeing proprietary client information. 

·         Wrote server software (running on the same NC server, described above) that accepts connections from a Network Operation Center requesting the Cellular sites to transmit data, and/or to report or change their status.  The server routes the requests to the correct site.

 

Hardware/Firmware/Device Driver Programming Experience (Laitram Corp.):

 

·         Sole Author and Maintainer of The SST-5136 Driver and software suite for Linux.  This is the Linux driver and support Package for the SST CAN-Bus/DeviceNet interface cards.  Driver supports ISA, PC-104 and PCMCIA versions.  http://www.spectra-one.com/dn5136man.html

·         Contributing author and maintainer of the Matrox Meteor Video Capture card driver and ancillary applications for Linux. http://www.spectra-one.com/meteorman.html

·         Developed a function library for controlling Omron PLC's from a central UNIX host computer. Developed on ISC UNIX, ported to SCO UNIX and Linux.  I have written Serial and TCP/IP variations of this package.

·         Developed device drivers and function libraries for controlling multi-axis servo and stepper controllers from a UNIX host.  Developed on ISC UNIX, ported to SCO UNIX and Linux.

·         Have developed several other UNIX device drivers for real time data capture and video grabber boards.

 

Artificial Intelligence/Industrial Automation Programming experience (Laitram Corp.):

 

·         Written extensive artificial intelligence programs for interpreting noisy and incomplete video images and defining a three dimensional water-jet cutting path from the information using sophisticated heuristics to make decisions based on incomplete or conflicting data.

·         Developed supervisory system for industrial automation system.  Linux computer monitors operating parameters of manufacturing line and automatically recovers from mechanical failures.

·         Developed a user interface for the industrial supervisory system.  Interface features text and graphical modes of operation and several levels of user privileges.

 

UNIX/Linux Programming and Administration (Laitram Corp.):

 

·         Contributing author to the "Bigphysarea patch" to the Linux kernel.  This patch helped make possible the "Video for Linux" project and other innovations in Linux development.

·         Maintained network of UNIX/Linux computers on local LAN and with Internet connection.

·         Wrote and maintained department web pages.  Some with CGI interface to databases.  Fluent in HTML syntax.

·         Installed from scratch dozens of ISC UNIX, SCO UNIX, and Linux systems.

·         Troubleshot and repaired damaged UNIX filesystems.

·         Built most of the project's Intel based hardware from scratch.

·         Maintained the following Internet services on UNIX and Linux computers:  ftp, telnet, http, DNS, timed, SMTP, POP 3.

·         Experience using/programming/administering the following flavors of UNIX:  AT&T Sys. V r. 3.2, AT&T Sys V r. 4.X, ISC UNIX, SCO UNIX, SCO Open Server, SGI IRIX, Linux kernels 1.0.x - 2.3.x.

 

Electrical Engineering Experience (Laitram Corp.):

 

·         Designed electrical interface circuitry to interface 16 strobes to a UNIX computer and fire them in synchronization with the scanning of a TV camera, each strobe illuminating exactly one video frame to achieve a set of images with precisely structured lighting.  I also wrote the UNIX driver software that interfaced with the circuit and the strobes.

·         Extensive automated motor control experience.

·         Designed wiring harnesses and power and control signal distribution for entire manufacturing lines in washdown environments.

·         Designed extensive DeviceNet Networks.  Interfaced machines controlled by UNIX or Linux computers and machines controlled by Omron PLCs on a common network and developed user interfaces for those machines.

·         Experienced in PLC programming, device interfaces, and ladder logic.

·         Experienced in specifying and integrating stepper and servo motors in robotic applications. 

·         Experienced in design of robotic devices for up to six axis coordinated (synchronized) motion.

·         Listed as inventor or co-inventor on 5 patents.

 

Proficient in the following programming languages and assembly codes:

 

Extensive experience in the following: C, Sh script, Ksh script, Bash script, Pascal, Forth, Basic, Intel 80x86 assembly code, Intel 8051 assembly code, TI MSP 430 assembly code.

Have done some programming in the following: C++, Perl Script, Java, Java script, FORTRAN, Motorola 680X0 assembly code, PDP-11 macrocode, Microchip PIC assembly code.

 

 Strengths:

 

·         Practical problem solving.

·         Dependability (rarely taken a sick day, never missed a day of college or high school).

·         Handling complete project from idea to commercial application.

·         Written communications (technical and business).

 

Hobbies and Interests:

 

·         Production of audio and video recordings.

·         Lighting and sound technician.

·         Photography.