Snell
and Wilcox 1998-2007
Spencer was responsible for introducing fibre optic technology
to Snell. He was initially brought in to design and develop
a fibre optic based transport module capable of transmitting
HD-SDI video reliably over distances greater than the
100m capable with coax. These modules were designed from
the outset to incorporate off-the-shelf optical components
such as splitters and wavelength division multiplexers
(WDM) to maximise the performance/cost ratio.
Over the years the fibre modules have been updated to
become multi-rate, capable of transmitting signals as
diverse as AES digital audio to HD-SDI video. Advances
in technology have also been used to substantially reduce
the production cost of these modules.
In addition to the fibre work, Spencer designed and developed
the firmware for Snell's first HD-SDI capable audio embedder
and disembedder modules. This work led to his most recent
work on the complete embedded audio design for the the Quaser
upconvertor and the Snell and Wilcox flagship conversion
product, Alembic.
GEC-Marconi 1988-1998
While working at GEC, Spencer became involved with fibre
optic technology from his first engineering role within
the Applied Research Group helping with the design and
integration of a fibre optic based military demonstrator.
As part of this programme, an evaluation study on the
temperature performance of laser diodes led to UK/US Patent
application 9211340.6 'Thermally Stabilised optical Devices'.
Subsequent work involved a detailed study into how current
and projected optical technology could be integrated with
more conventional electronic distribution architectures
to create cost effective, future-proof communication networks.
This work led Spencer to be involved with the Pan-European
RACE2001 project. This was a large scale project that
combined an existing electronic data packeting technology,
SDH (SONET), with the novel use of a passive optical distribution
architecture based on large optical splitters and 16 optical
wavelengths (DWDM). A successful demonstrator was built
which showed such a system could be used to transport
video within a broadcast studio environment.
Additional work involved investigation into a hybrid
packet/circuit switched network using ATM nodes combined
with a gigabit electronic circuit switch for the routing
of a wide range of different digital signal rates. This
work was further developed and an ATM/WDM interface capability
for multiple wavelength transmission of 155MBit/s ATM
data over fibre was demonstrated.
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