Keynote Speaker

Chris Fielding

Flight Control Systems Technologist, BAE Systems

Chris Fielding is a Flight Control Systems Technologist and is the Skill Group Leader for Flight Dynamics within the Aerodynamics Discipline at BAE Systems. He is currently working on system designs for unmanned air vehicles and is an active user of MATLAB and Simulink.

Chris started at British Aerospace in 1978, when he joined the Flight Control Systems Design Group within the Aerodynamics Department at Warton. His 31 years’ experience includes the modelling, design, simulation, and testing of flight control systems for a wide variety of production and research aircraft. These include systems for aircraft stability augmentation, spin prevention and incidence limiting, gust alleviation, and integrated flight and propulsion control.

He holds a bachelor's degree in mathematics and a master's degree in automatic control from UMIST (now Manchester University). He is a Chartered Engineer and a member of the Royal Aeronautical Society.

After-Dinner Speaker

Richard Noble, OBE

Director of BLOODHOUND Project

Against a background of today's low-risk culture, Richard Noble specialises in developing high-risk ventures. The best-known are the Thrust2 programme which brought the World Land Speed Record back to Britain in 1983 and the Thrust SSC first-ever supersonic land speed record programme.

Richard's other projects include the ARV Super2 light aircraft; the Atlantic Sprinter Blue Riband contender; Programme Funding, an original television funding company; and Farnborough Aircraft, which is creating the first point-to-point taxi aircraft.

As a conference and after-dinner speaker, Richard illustrates his presentations with unique video and explains the huge problems in trying to persuade the old British establishment to consider and implement change and listen to original thinking.

Additional Speakers

Rob Aberg, The MathWorks

Rob Aberg is the director for Simulink Core Development Teams at The MathWorks. He is a mechanical engineer with over 25 years of experience in embedded control systems, software development, test systems, and combustion thermodynamics. He has previously held positions at Honeywell Engine Systems, in test system consulting, and at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory.

Andrew Bennett, The MathWorks

Andrew is a principal engineer in the MathWorks Consulting Services group. He leads projects in the defence and energy sectors, focusing on large dynamic system simulations and Model-Based Design. Prior to joining The MathWorks, he worked at National Grid and University of Bath. Andrew has a B.Eng. in electrical engineering with applied electronics and a Ph.D. in power systems modelling and control from University of Bath.

Paul Berry, Thales Belfast

Paul works within the System Design and Synthetic Environments group at Thales in Belfast. He specialises in modelling, simulation, and algorithm design across all aspects of missile systems from initial concept development through to trials analysis.

Stuart Brady, SELEX Galileo

Stuart is a software developer within SELEX Galileo, experienced in full life-cycle software development for real-time embedded and Windows-based applications, targeted at land, air, and naval military environments. More recently, he has been involved with Model-Based Design in Rhapsody and Simulink hosted under VxWorks. Stuart worked on the Seawolf Mid-life Update project performing design, integration, validation, and test activities of the non-algorithmic control software and supported the integration, validation, and testing of the Simulink automatically generated code.

Emmet Connon, Thales Belfast

Emmet is a recent addition to the System Design and Synthetic Environments group at Thales in Belfast, recruited as a graduate two and a half years ago. His current role involves the system design, testing, verification, and validation of the Controller Actuator System on the new Lightweight Multi-role Missile.

Shane Davies, The MathWorks

Shane is a senior consultant at The MathWorks. His main areas of responsibility are code generation and verification and validation of models and code. Prior to joining The MathWorks in 2008, he worked on production code and Model-Based Design projects in the automotive industry for Ricardo and Tarragon Embedded Technology. Shane has more than 15 years experience in the industry and holds a B.Eng. (Hons) in computer systems engineering from the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology.

Dr. John P. Davis, Dragonfly Technology Ltd. and BLOODHOUND SSC

John started his own business, Dragonfly Technology Ltd., making control systems for racecars as well as consulting with Formula 1 teams in various roles. He is currently working on a 100 mpg car and has been invited to specify and develop the control system for the 1000mph vehicle for the BLOODHOUND Project. Prior to starting Dragonfly, John used his aerodynamic and active technology skills in a number of Formula 1 teams including Ligier, Arrows, Jordan, Minardi, and Williams F1. He also worked at Lotus Engineering developing active suspension technology, was aerodynamicist and head of research and development at Team Lotus, and started his career as an apprentice at British Leyland. He has a B.Sc. in mechanical engineering and a Ph.D. in ground effect aerodynamics from Imperial College.

Kelvin Hales, Vestas

Kelvin is currently employed by Vestas Technology Control-Systems R&D in Leatherhead, Surrey, working on advanced wind turbine control projects. Before joining Vestas, he worked for many years as an independent consulting engineer, carrying out modelling, simulation, and control system design studies for a wide range of process-industry clients. His previous positions include instrumentation and control engineer at BP Engineering, first focusing on oil production projects and later on modelling, simulation, and advanced control system design for refining and chemicals processes, and work on software development for X-ray brain and body scanners at Logica. Kelvin holds a bachelor’s degree in instrumentation and control engineering and a master’s degree in cybernetics. Kelvin has used MATLAB and Simulink for some 25 years, and founded the first MATLAB User Group in the U.K.

John Hanna, Thales Belfast

John works within the Electronics group at Thales in Belfast. He is currently involved in the design, verification, and testing of the Controller Actuator System FPGA. His role involves working with the System Design and Synthetic Environments group to produce Simulink models that can be implemented as VHDL code in FPGAs.

Dr. Andrew Hazell, Ceres Power

Andrew is a senior control engineer for Ceres Power, leading the design of control algorithms for fuel cell systems. His previous work includes developing data mining applications and research into discrete-time preview control. Andrew attended the University of Cambridge as an undergraduate, and received a master of engineering degree in electrical and information sciences in 2003. He received his Ph.D. in 2008 from Imperial College London, performing research in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering's Control and Power Group.

Rick Hyde, The MathWorks

Rick is a product developer in the MathWorks Physical Modeling team. He is currently developing libraries for Simscape and add-on vertical products. Prior to joining the team, Rick worked as a principal engineer in the Consulting group, leading aerospace and control-related engineering projects. He has previously worked at British Aerospace (Dynamics) Ltd. and Bristol University. Rick has an M.A. in engineering and a Ph.D. in robust control from Cambridge University.

Michael Lander, SELEX Galileo

Michael is the chief software engineer at SELEX Galileo in Basildon. He is the software technical lead for the Seawolf Mid-life Update Electro-Optic Subsystem program, on which the use of the IBM Rhapsody toolset and Simulink and related blocksets from The MathWorks have been utilised to develop the algorithmic and non-algorithmic software.

Matt Lodge, BAE Systems

Matt is a senior flight control specialist with 19 years' experience in flight control laws design and aircraft handling qualities. Working in the BAE Systems Military Air Solutions business at their Warton site, he spent the first part of his career in the area of Short Take-Off and Vertical Landling (STOVL) controls research. More recently, he was control law design lead for the Nimrod MRA4 longitudinal stability augmentation system (SAS) and is currently leading the control laws design team for the Taranis UCAV demonstrator aircraft.

Jos Martin, The MathWorks

Jos is currently the principal architect for parallel computing tools at The MathWorks. Before moving to a development role, he worked as a MathWorks consultant in the U.K., writing large-scale MATLAB applications, particularly in the finance and automotive sectors. Prior to joining The MathWorks in 2000, Jos held a Royal Society Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the University of Otago, New Zealand. His area of research was Experimental Bose-Einstein Condensation (BEC), a branch of low-temperature atomic physics. In 2008, on behalf of The MathWorks, Jos was a joint winner of the HPC Challenge Class 2 award for Most Productive Implementation at Supercomputing 08.

Patrick Mattis, AREVA

Patrick is a project manager specialising in full life-cycle product development programs of electromechanical and software products. He works on AREVA’s Voltage Source Converter HVDC development program, focusing on control design, development, and implementation. Patrick has over 14 years of experience in a number of engineering and software industries such as robotics, defence, medical, pharmaceutical, and electric power.

Dr. John Outram, Ultra Electronics PMES

John is principal power engineer at Ultra Electronics PMES. He serves as the technical leader for two high-integrity, power-conversion units for submarine reactor control equipment (one unit from concept through qualification tests to delivery) as well as for various power-dense-converter, concept design studies. Before joining Ultra, John held engineering positions with ALSTOM Power Conversion and BAE Systems. He was also a research fellow, focusing on electric and hybrid vehicles, at University of Warwick. He holds M.A., Ph.D., and C.Eng. degrees and is a member of the Institution of Engineering and Technology.

David Roberts, Renault

David has worked for the Renault Formula 1 Team since 2002, initially as a principal control engineer and now as a vehicle performance engineer specialising in the field of model-based fault identification. Prior to working in F1, David worked as a technical specialist for the Ford Motor Company in the Ford Forschungszentrum in Aachen, Germany. He has a Ph.D. in model-based control using bond graphs from the University of Glasgow and a M.A. in engineering science from the University of Cambridge.

David Sampson, The MathWorks

David is a principal engineer in the consulting group at The MathWorks. David focuses on applications of physical modelling, statistical modelling, optimization, and control in the automotive and aerospace industries. David holds a Ph.D. in vehicle dynamics and control from the University of Cambridge, UK, and a B.E. in mechanical engineering from the University of Sydney, Australia.

Andy Sherriff, MBDA

Andy is a technical expert and team leader for image processing within the Guidance, Control, and Navigation department within MBDA. Andy has 23 years experience in image processing, and in his current position he is responsible for the delivery of the image processing algorithms on Fire Shadow for both the munition and the Ground Station Control Node.

Christopher Slack, Airbus

Christopher is Computational Analysis Expert within Airbus Fuel Systems. Chris has 25 years of experience in the area of modelling and simulation of aircraft systems, mostly with Airbus, and has recently been promoted to the Expert Role. He is involved in the development and deployment of the Modelling and Simulation strategies for Airbus across the U.K., France, Germany, Spain, and India.

Will Suart, Jaguar Land Rover

Will is a technical specialist in Functional Modelling within Jaguar Land Rover. His role involves developing processes and methods that support functional design verification that contributes to improved simulation capability. Will has over 15 years of experience in the areas of mathematical and control system modelling and simulation.

Anthony Totterdell, AREVA

Anthony is a project engineer for AREVA's Voltage Source Converter HVDC development program, focusing on top-level control system design, protection strategy, and testing. He has over 10 years of experience within the electric power industry with relation to high-voltage direct current (HVDC) systems and flexible AC transmission systems (FACTS). His experience includes a number of positions with specialisation in algorithm design, control system architecture design, and real-time digital studies for HVDC and FACTS technology. Anthony (MIET, MIEEE) received his bachelor of engineering degree (Hons) in electrical and electronic engineering from Aston University in 1997.

Gavin Walker, The MathWorks

Gavin leads the Simulink Model Management group, a part of the Simulink Core development group. Gavin has been with The MathWorks for more than 10 years and is based in the Cambridge, U.K. office. For many years, he worked in the MathWorks Consulting group, specializing in configuration management systems and advanced simulation techniques, before bringing that experience into a core development role. Gavin received his Ph.D. from the Control Group of Cambridge University Engineering Department.

Mark Walker, The MathWorks

Mark works for the Pilot Engineering team at The MathWorks. He works with customers deploying MathWorks products in production software environments and specialises in high-integrity embedded applications. Prior to joining The MathWorks in 2006, Mark worked as a consultant in the automotive industry, developing high-integrity control software. This involved extensive use of Simulink, and Mark has been using code generation since 1998. Mark has a B.A. and an M.Eng. in electrical engineering from Cambridge University.

Ivan Wilson, Embed Limited

Ivan is a director of Embed Limited, a model-based development consultancy that specialises in delivering technologically advanced, high-quality embedded systems in short time scales. His focus on new business development has led Embed to develop skills in vision recognition, intelligent traffic information systems, and human machine interface rapid-prototyping as well as telematics. Previously Ivan worked at Saab in Sweden, where he delivered the application code for the 93 Instrument Panel using model-based development. Ivan also worked at Rover Group in the whole vehicle electrical test team, known as LabCar, where he did all the Simulink modelling of the mechanical aspects of the vehicle. The models then fed the ECUs with simulated sensor data in real time using dSPACE® systems.