## BIO
**Curriculum Vitae: Dr DAVID JAMES AUSTIN**
NATIONALITY: Australian.
**ACADEMIC QUALIFICATIONS**
Bachelor of Science (Computer Science), Australian National University, 1993
Bachelor of Engineering (Systems Engineering), Australian National University, 1995
Doctor of Philosophy, Australian National University, 2000
Thesis: *Discrete Event Control of Uncertain Constrained Motion Systems*
**PRIZES AND AWARDS**
University Medal for outstanding results, Engineering, 1995
National Undergraduate Scholarship 1991-5
Top Student, Third year Engineering: Electrical Engineers' (Australian College) Prize, 1994
Top Student, Third year Computer Science, 1994
**GRANTS**
STINT(Swedish Govt) Collaborative Research Grant with Prof. Henrik Christensen, 2001-5 $300,000
ARC Postdoctoral Fellowship ``Mapping for Dynamic Environments', 2001-4 $191,766
ARC Linkage Grant with Questacon ``A Museum Tourguide Robot', 2003-6 $255,000
ARC Discovery Grant ``Autonomous Functions for Smart Cars' 2004-7 $280,000
NICTA Project Grant ``Ubiquitous Robot' with Nick Barnes, 2004-5 $270,870
**PAPERS AND PUBLICATIONS**
One book, seven international journal papers and 33 conference papers, mostly in the premiere international conferences. For a full list of my publications, see http::[login to view URL].
**SUMMARY OF SKILLS**
PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES: C, C++, Tcl/Tk, Python, Perl, PHP, many other scripting languages, matlab, Java, Pascal, Modula-2, Modula-3, Fortran, BASIC, LOGO, LISP, SQL, 80x86 Assembler, 680x0 Assembler, 68HC11 Assembler, Z80 Assembler, PIC Assembler. OPERATING SYSTEMS: Linux, Solaris, VxWorks, QNX, Windows, DOS.
ELECTRONICS: digital and analog circuit design, PCB design, circuit diagnosis and repair, advanced soldering including surface mount components, FPGAs and VHDL.
**SOFTWARE PROJECTS** <u>Dave's Robotic Operating System</u> (DROS): A set of modules and systems for control of robots. Chiefly designed to allow my team of post-doctoral researchers, programmers and graduate and under-graduate students to collaborate in the development of research systems for robotics. I led the project, including personal development of the core middleware (extensive use of TCP/IP, UDP and shared memory communications), supervision of most of the research projects, as well as personal development of some projects. This was a particularly complex project, requiring optimisation of the use of CPU and network resources and meeting real-time requirements to ensure robot safety. The project averaged more than 100,000 lines of code a year. In 2004 and 2005, the group averaged ten people, peaking at 19 people over the summer of 2004-5. See [login to view URL]
<u>DRobot</u>: A reverse-engineered driver for Nomadic Technologies XR4000 robots. In 2000, Nomadic Technologies was acquired by another company and the robotics business abandoned. To continue support for the ANU XR4000 robot, I reverse-engineered the Linux kernel driver for the robot (some 30,000 lines of C code). Since then, the driver has been ported to the 2.4 and 2.6 kernels.
<u>RobotADT</u>: An abstract data type for control of robots. This system permitted control of Puma robot arms. It was written in C and ran under VxWorks on Motorola 68040 VME boards. This system allowed position and force control of the Puma robots and had a client-server interface for high-level control. I wrote extensions to the Tcl scripting language which were used in teaching labs for easy control of the robots. This project consisted of approximately 100,000 lines of code and was written during my PhD studies.
<u>Bootloader for MC68332 Daughter-board</u>: Developed a cross-loader for the 68332 daughter board. The daughter board and host controller shared dual-port RAM, through which the code to be run was transferred. After the transfer (and a checksum) the transferred code was run. This included my favourite line of C code, which jumped to the transferred code (data was copied through the dual-port RAM to a buffer at address MC68332\_DESTINATION): #define MC68332\_USERMEM\_START 0x20400 #define MC68332\_DESTINATION ((volatile UINT16 *) MC68332\_USERMEM\_START) typedef void (*FUNCPTR)(); . . . /* Now call the function that we just downloaded! */ ((FUNCPTR) MC68332_DESTINATION)();
<u>Joint Controller for Puma Robot</u>: A 68HC11 controller for each joint of a Puma robot arm (six copies were used for the six joints of the robot). The joint controllers implemented a proportional-derivative controller, plus pulse width modulation running at 9.6kHz. Communications were achieved using a 9600 baud serial link. I designed the circuit for the controller and developed the 10,000 lines of assembly language to perform the required functions.
<u>DES Encryption in Firmware</u>: A Z80-based system for encryption of a serial link between computers. I developed an assembly language implementation of DES for the Z80 (with a princely 2k of RAM) as well as an implementation in Pascal for the IBM PC. This was a project for Computer Science in year 12, when I was 16.
<u>Z80 ROM Emulator</u>: A system which allowed a host computer (anApple Macintosh) to emulate the first 2k of ROM for a Z80. The host computer used a serial interface and the Z80 was kept in a wait state until the required byte was available from the serial to parallel converter. This was developed as a PCB as well as using wire wrapping. The ROM emulator was developed when I was 12 years old and in the next couple of years I developed a bi-directional radio modem (1200 baud) and used both for control of my first mobile robot.
**EXPERIENCE**
<u>October 2005 - May 2006: Programmer, Prometheus Information Pty Ltd</u>
Contributed to the development and maintenance of the Prometheus statistical information desktop client and server systems. Complete upgrade of unix file and web servers and linux desktops. Unfortunately, the programming tasks available were not sufficiently challenging.
<u>January 2001 - September 2005: Research Fellow, Robotics Systems Lab, RSISE, Australian National University</u>
Investigated operation of mobile robots in dynamic environments (typically a static environment is assumed) and long-term reliability and robustness issues for mobile robots. Developed tour-guide robot with Questacon science and technology museum. Taught postgraduate course in Simultaneous Localisation and Mapping in 2004.
<u>1999-2000: Postdoctoral researcher, Center for Autonomous Systems, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm</u>
## Area of Expertise
PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES: C, C++, Tcl/Tk, Python, Perl, PHP, many other scripting languages, matlab, Java, Pascal, Modula-2, Modula-3, Fortran, BASIC, LOGO, LISP, SQL, 80x86 Assembler, 680x0 Assembler, 68HC11 Assembler, Z80 Assembler, PIC Assembler. OPERATING SYSTEMS: Linux, Solaris, VxWorks, QNX, Windows, DOS. ELECTRONICS: digital and analog circuit design, PCB design, circuit diagnosis and repair, advanced soldering including surface mount components, FPGAs and VHDL.
