Communicating with UAVs' speaker biographies
Find out more about those speaking at this event
Andy O’Keeffe
Andrew has a first degree in Electronic Engineering from the University of Kent at Canterbury and a Masters degree in Microwaves & Optics from University College London. He has previously spent 16 years with Thales Airborne Systems working as a RF systems engineer within the field of Radar Electronic Warfare, and has spent the last 3 years working within QinetiQ developing long range communications payloads for a number of UAV programmes. Andrew is a registered Chartered Engineer with the Institution of Engineering and Technology.
Professor Ian Poll OBE FREng FAIAA FRAeS
Ian Poll is Professor of Aerospace Engineering and Business Development and Technical Director of Cranfield Aerospace Limited.
A graduate of Imperial College, he has 30 years experience in aerospace and aviation, gained in both the academic and commercial domains. His career began at Hawker Siddeley Aviation moving to the College of Aeronautics, Cranfield in 1975. He was appointed Professor of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Manchester in 1985, later becoming Head of Manchester’s Department of Engineering.
In 1995, he returned to Cranfield as Head of the College of Aeronautics and he was Director of Cranfield College of Aeronautics from 2001 until 2004. He created Cranfield Aerospace Limited in 1997 and now serves as its Director of Development and Technical Director.
He has been a visiting research scientist at NASA Langley, NASA Ames and Stanford University. He was the UK academic member of the NATO AGARD Fluid Dynamics Panel from 1990 to 1996 and he was President of the Royal Aeronautical Society in 2001. Currently, he is a member of the Councils of the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Royal Aeronautical Society and the Air League. He is also President Elect of the International Council of the Aeronautical Sciences
A Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, The City and Guilds Institute of London, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and the Royal Aeronautical Society, he was awarded the OBE in 2002 in recognition of his contributions to the Cranfield College of Aeronautics.
Dr Joseph Barnard
Dr Joseph Barnard is the Managing Director of Barnard Microsystems Limited, an independent company involved in the development of scientific software and Unmanned Air Vehicle systems. He holds a Ph.D. degree from Cornell University in the USA in Electrophysics and with Dr Hideo Ohno from Tokyo University developed the first GaInAs MESFET.
Dr Barnard contributes technical articles and presentations at international conferences on sensor systems and the use of UAVs in geophysical survey work. He is a member of EuroCAE Working Group 73. WG 73 is a European effort by those with an interest in UAVs to develop proposals to enable Unmanned Air Vehicles to fly in non-segregated, commercial, air space. He also manages an innovative team of software and hardware designers who are developing new navigation, flight control and communication systems for civilian UAVs and precision sensor systems for use in oil, gas and mineral exploration and production activities.
Dr Barnard is heading up one of the six Teams being funded to participate in the upcoming MoD Grand Challenge. To read more, see the www.barnardmicrosystems.com site.
Philip Haines
Educated as a Physicist, Philip’s career has taken him from purely technical roles designing satellite payloads through to general management in the satellite communications sector. He has spent most of his working life with major satellite operators including Eutelsat, GE Americom (now SES-Americom) and New Skies Satellites (now SES New Skies), also leading the start-up of a number of UK subsidiaries for foreign companies. For the last 6½ years he has run his own small consulting company Hollycroft Associates with clients in the UK, Europe, Africa and the USA.
Dr Setnam L. Shemar
Setnam has a degree in Physics with Astrophysics from the University of Manchester in the UK and a PhD in Radio Astronomy from Jodrell Bank Observatory. He worked for 5 years as a scientist at the DTI’s National Physical Laboratory carrying out research and development into high-precision time transfer using two-way satellite time and frequency transfer and GPS. For the past 5 years he has been working within QinetiQ in the UK in the areas of high-precision radio emitter location, Galileo, RF propagation and SATCOM- related projects.