Background

David Brandon is part of our engineering department. He brings a lot of experience and knowledge to our team, which is shown by his extensive background below.

Hardware Design Work

• 1978 thru 1981: Designed electronics controller and wrote software for the company's first electro-hydraulic crawler transmission controller. Designed with Intel 8748 processor with external timer counters to provided 1kHz valve pwm. It provided closed loop control of vehicle ground speed to maintain engine speed at "optimum" performance within 100rpm range based on the combined propulsion and hydraulic loads on the vehicle. The main control loop operated with a 5ms cycle.

• 1980 thru 1981: Designed a patented non-contact power transferring (5watt category) variable output (-100% to +100%) rotary control for operator inputs based on multiple winding rotary core transformer with 100kHz switching drive. The design goal being to assure that the operator could always obtain zero motion of the particular vehicle system by moving control lever to the 0% position even with failure of the control electronics.

• 1980 thru 1984: Designed electronics controller and wrote software for the company's first production tractor electro-hydraulic transmission control. Electronics was based on Motorola 68HC11 with a generic 8751 sub-processor to monitor and diagnose shift lever motion. Output controlled eight valves modulated at 1kHz update every 10ms. Software provided shift smoothing by adjusting valve drive and timing.

• 1983 thru 1986: Oversight of production of electronics electro-hydraulic transmission controller by major automotive electronics vendor. Including test system development and production issue resolution.

• 1985 thru 1987: Designed updated electronics controller for tractor transmission based upon Motorola 68HC16. production planning

• 1987 thru 1996: Member of company's vehicle network physical layer design team.

           ---Included design of simple discrete component driver and development of             "low cost" ic.

           ---Conversion of company's proprietary physical layer and driver into              ISO-11783 implementation. Including computer simulation of some 200              different topologies.

           ---Development and qualification of twisted quad cable to replace more             expensive and fragile shielded twisted pair as the network media.

• 2001 thru 2007: Design of small remote valve driver controlled via network connection.

• 2002 thru 2007: Design of feasibility model of converter module for network to previous generation lighting control connector for tractor hitch connection.

Management

• 2001 thru 2007: Oversaw JD PEC EMC Lab operations, including outdoor open field test site and indoor 5meter chamber. Both areas provided product emissions measurement and 120V/m susceptibility test capabilities from 100kHz to 1GHz.

• 2005 thru 2007: John Deere PEC Electronics Systems equipment review, selection, maintenance and calibration activities.

Industry Standards Committee Work

• 1979 thru 2004: Member SAE EMI & EMR committee. Reviewed emissions and susceptibility standards with Agricultural vehicle requirements in mind while particularly representing the company's interest in terms of number of tests and the particular test methods approved.

• 1986 thru 2002: Member SAE J1939 high speed communications sub-committee. Served as author for several document sections during membership including "network management" part 81, "physical layer" both parts 11 & 12 and "diagnostics" part 73.
  
• 1986 thru 2002: Member ISO 11783 committee and working groups. Editor of several document sections over period.

Work as Company Consultant

• 1979 thru 1983: John Deere PEC in-house consultant on EMC issues. Including providing guidance on selection of equipment for new EMC lab, methods to operate the lab, help with construction of chamber and lab within new engineering center.

• 1984 thru 1986: Part of in-house committee to design a new EMC facility with goal of operation as a separate business unit.

• 1986 thru 2007: John Deere PEC In house consultant on EMC issues.

• 1986 thru 2002: John Deere PEC In house consultant on SAE J1939 and ISO11783 high speed vehicle communications networks.

• 1986 thru 2002: John Deere PEC In house consultant on vehicle electronics interaction and malfunction identification for what service would identify as the weirdest of field issues. Many turned out to be EMI resulting from changes from original design brought on by cost reduction.

Company Team/Committee Work

• Member and author with corporate electronics standards including design guidelines and testing methods.

• Member of JD PEC Electronic Systems radio team with antenna placement, shielding and cable routing to reduce interference to on-board entertainment and business band radios. Including authoring specification for antenna and cable for entertainment radio.

• Member of team to determine root cause of failures during 100-day environmental qualification testing of each electronics module, as well as general work with in-house electronics test group.

• Provided several fixture designs to operate sensors during environmental testing.

           ---Also designed several custom instrumentation units to simulate vehicle              and other system parameters during test.

           ---Consultation with test group to insure accuracy of test methods and data               acquisition for test plans, including interface with shop personnel               monitoring testing.

           ---Member of team to determine root cause of failures during 100day               environmental qualification testing of each electronics module.

• Assistance with the electrical group on batteries and alternators and grounding of the power systems to avoid issues with the electronics systems. Included work on alternator load dump transients and their elimination. Also development of high capacity fusing for the tractor battery.

• Assistance to wiring group with review of routing and connections to reduce radio interference as well as to improve signal levels and limit transients for electronics modules.

Patents

• Several patents related to transmission control and radio interference reduction. Personally feel the best was for method for altering the drive frequency of switching systems based upon the operator selected radio stations so that interference was no longer within the pass band of the entertainment radio.

Education

• BS EE Dec 76 and MSEE 1978 U of MO - Rolla (Now Missouri University of Science and Technology))

Additional Information

• Hobbies include amateur radio and collecting things, including crystalised mineral specimens, microscopes, scale aircraft and marine engines and old electronics.