Richard Ballard

Experience

• 

  LINC Tasmania

  Apr 2010 - Feb 2015

  Customer Service Officer

  LINC Tasmania/State Library of Tasmania is a state wide government funded set of libraries. My time at LINC Tasmania consisting of customer relations, mail and dispatch duties and general library tasks. My period here was on a contract and casual basis.

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  University of Tasmania

  Apr 2015 - Dec 2019

  TerraLuma is a research project at the University of Tasmania, dealing with use of unmanned aerial vehicles for surveying purposes. Here, I've developed platforms for integrating numerous geo-spatial sensors together. Being the sole engineer on the project, I project manage the entire design process. This includes mechanical design, mechanical testing and fabrication, systems engineering, electrical designs, PCB design, electrical testing and troubleshooting as well as writing code for low level communication to devices. Show less

  • Research Engineer with IMAS

    Jul 2017 - Dec 2019

  • Mechatronics Design Engineer with the TerraLuma Research Project

    Jan 2015 - Feb 2019

  • Lab Supervisor

    Apr 2015 - May 2016
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  Sense-T

  Aug 2017 - Dec 2018

  Mechatronic Design Engineer

  At Sense-T, I design electrical and mechanical systems for use in industrial applications.

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  Ballard Engineering

  Jul 2018 - Mar 2022

  Mechatronics Design Engineer, Owner

  My work at Ballard Engineering has allowed me to branch out from previous work and take on more complex and larger projects. That is, take a project from a concept to finished product with a special emphasis on working with the client to develop a product that fits their needs.Work has included:- system design (multi-sensor and multi-device systems)- Ground up firmware software architecture design, based on FreeRTOS for STM32 and Zephyr for STM32- Designing both software and hardware for re-use over multiple projects- Low-noise and mixed signal circuitry- Sensor Integration electronics and software- Low noise mixed signal PCBs- C++ QT based GUI device control software Show less

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  University of Tasmania

  Feb 2020 - Nov 2022

  Research Engineer (Sense-t and TIA collaboration)

  This position involves developing smart soil sensors as part of the Soil CRC, an industry-led collaboration with government and research institutes allowing improved technology for agriculture and an improved understanding of soil. The project I’m involved with at UTAS is the Smart Soil Sensors project. (https://www.utas.edu.au/tia/research/research-projects/projects/smart-soil-sensors)Specifically, my position has involved developing the ‘Below Ground Sensor Network’. This has primarily focused on developing a low-power Internet of things (IoT) device, that can interface with existing commercially available soil sensors, while lasting 5 or more years while buried in the ground. Subsequent to the node itself, I’ve also worked on deploying gateways and the data path including data harvesting, database backends (InfluxDB and MariaDB/MySQL), and data visualising (in Grafana). Being a research project, I’ve also undertaken some data processing in Python with the aide of Pandas.Development of the node itself has involved me developing the node hardware (schematics, pcb layout, component selection and contract manufacturing), using Zephyr RTOS and architecting the required modules on top, a custom antenna design and developing the application protocol used between the node and the server infrastructure.Testing of the components for this project has involved extensive in-field testing. Automated hardware testing has also been considered. Show less

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  GHD

  Dec 2022 - now

  Senior Hardware Engineer and Hardware Team Leader