Gray Abbott's Resume

CREARE, INC., Hanover, NH - Engineer/Project Leader, 1984-1993 (1/2 time since 1987)

Specialist in Graphics, Digital Signal Processing, Artificial Intelligence

Principal Investigator on Phase I and Phase II SBIR: The AKL Spatiotemporal Representation in a Tactile Aid for the Deaf, under contract with National Institute of Neurological Communicative Disorders and Stroke(NINCDS). Developed methods for processing speech for tactile presentation. Developed real-time speech processors, one involving four pipelined TMS32010 processors, on Sky320Q boards; a second prototype used two pipelined Motorola DSP56001 processors. This system was one of the most effective tactile aids developed, to date.

Co-designer and team member on the development of a data acquisition and analysis system for use in jet engine testing, for a maker of commercial and military engines. System involved networked HP 9000/375 workstations, multiple HP3565 data acquisition units, IRIG tape control, automatic channel switching, high-resolution tachometers, and job setup and control features, using X Window/Motif interface. Responsible for interacting with client (co-authored proposal), for specifying user interface, and for co-directing development team. Wrote all HP3565 and host interface code, including SPIL and DSP56000 programming. System involved real-time signal processing, including digital bandpass filtering, computation of amplitude and RMS, proprietary noise rejection algorithms, and throughput to disk, on signals sampled at up to 262 kHz. Received special training from Hewlett Packard in internals of HP3565.

Project director for the development of data acquisition and analysis software for use by an electric power utility. Worked with client to specify system, based on HP3565 and HP 9000/400 series workstation. Wrote real-time components of system and directed team members in the development of user interface (using HP Architect (UIMX) GUI-design tool) and graphics.

Knowledge Engineer on Phase I and II SBIR contracts: PC-Based Expert System for Thermal Analysis of Electronic Equipment for U.S. Air Force. Co-authored winning Phase II proposal to develop a prototype system which applies "expert" knowledge to predict temperatures and thermal failures in electronic circuit boards, based on sketchy information.

Team member on Phase II SBIR: Numerical Modeling Tools for Chemical Vapor Deposition for NASA. Developed application-specific "shell" for generic computational fluid dynamics program, for modeling CVD reactors. System vastly simplifies modeling of reactors by hiding the general-purpose CAD interface of the CFD program behind one which allows only parametric changes to a predetermined reactor geometry. System was written in Scheme and provides an X Window user interface; it communicates with the CFD program via UNIX pipes, acting as a virtual user.

Team leader for design and implementation of YAGS graphics software, part of a new version of the MLAB data analysis program, called ML/e, developed for the National Cancer Institute. YAGS features an object-oriented, hierarchical graphics model, a custom-designed, advanced graphics metafile, and several device-specific graphics filters.

Participant in design and implementation of IDARS, an integrated data acquisition and reduction software product. Served as digital signal processing consultant for development effort. Designed IDARS function for user design of digital filters. Developed custom Postscript graphics filter for use with IDARS. IDARS won an IIR 100 award from IR&D Magazine as "One of the 100 Most Significant Technical Products of 1986".

Designed CAD-like front end to FLUENT/BFC, a computational fluid dynamics software product (now sold by Fluent, Inc.), including all elements of underlying computational geometry for curve and surface design and representation. Supervised design of device-independent graphics interface. Same front end is now used with FLUENT v 4.0.

Participant in Department of Energy project (SBIR Phase I and II) using ultrasonic ranging and digital signal processing to accurately measure displacements of vibrating structures during seismic testing.

Participant in Department of Energy project (SBIR Phase I) attempting to measure rainfall over large bodies of water using underwater sound and digital signal processing.

Project Engineer on Phase I SBIR contract: An Expert Assistant for Computational Fluid Dynamics, for the U.S. Army.

Knowledge Engineer on Phase I SBIR grant: Computer Assessment of Learning by Gifted Students, for the National Institutes of Health.

Responsible for supervising and participating in design and maintenance of graphics products for Masscomp computers. Products include MC/PLOT, MC/TEK, MC/HOUSTON, MC/ZETA, MC/VERSATEC, MC/BENSON, MC/IMAGEN, MC/SPECTRUM, & MC/VERSACOLOR. Product components include Unix GPS graphics device filters, hardcopy screen dumps from the Masscomp graphics console, multi-device spooler, and device drivers.

Served as UUCP network Postmaster, News, and Internet administrator.

Set up and administered the Microprocessor Development Lab, for internal use by engineering projects.


Gray Abbott's Resume