Vectronix

Context

A laser range finder measures time of flight against a faint return signal, and a northfinding instrument resolves a direction from a small physical effect. Both live at the limit of what the electronics around them can resolve.

Constraint

At that limit the instrument and its measurement stop being separable. Noise, timing, and thermal behavior are not implementation details around a working principle; they set whether the principle works at all. And an instrument that cannot be observed under test cannot be qualified, however well it performs.

Contribution

I developed and validated the transmitter, receiver, and motherboard control electronics for laser ranging, and the electronics for digital-compass and northfinding instruments, together with the test methods that made their behavior observable. I supported FPGA image processing and automated test systems, and contributed to three patents in distance measurement.

Approach

Test method was designed alongside the electronics rather than after them, so the question of whether the instrument was behaving correctly had an answer that did not depend on the judgment of the person holding it.

Outcome

Instruments that hold their accuracy outside laboratory conditions, and three inventions carried through to granted patents.