SUMMARY

Senior Systems/Electrical/Project engineer with 11+ years of extensive experience in multiple phases of hardware & software development, systems engineering, as well as project/product management. Primarily responsible for inception and implementation of many product designs. Solid background in planning and managing projects under demanding deadlines and shoestring budgets. Significant contribution to company profitability through grants and funding obtained from SBIR (Small Business Innovative Research) proposals. Strong expertise in system architecture design, algorithm development, PCBA (Printed Circuit Board Assembly), and problem-resolution for space based electronics/avionics. Skills acquired through experience in complex designs for the hi-rel and aerospace industry in a start-up environment.

AREAS OF EXPERTISE

Systems:

• System level requirements, analyses, simulations, trade studies, design iterations, mission & flight Ops.
• Strong background in spacecraft bus standards, payload integration, avionics design, & launch services
• Good know-how of design, improvement, and installation of integrated systems of people, materials, equipment, and methods.
• Sound knowledge of systems safety, reliability, maintainability, testability, human systems integration, survivability, vulnerability, susceptibility, security, regulatory, certification, product assurance and other factors that should be accounted into a preferred configuration to ensure mission success.

Electrical:

• Robust, complex design of small/medium, high density, multi-layer printed circuit electronic boards using a combination of surface mount and through hole parts
• Electronics packaging & protection, thermal design, board geometry, signal integrity, power-off, in-circuit and functional testing
• High speed data acquisition and signal conditioning using MUX, A/D and D/A
• Low voltage power supply designs, chassis based power management, conditioning and distribution for satellites and spacecraft
• Interfacing SDRAM, S-RAM, EEPROM and FLASH memories on μcontroller and μprocessor designs
• Wireless communication interfaces and protocols: TDMA/CDMA/FDMA/GSM/WDM   
• Serial Interfaces and BUS protocols: RS-422/485, SPI, I2C, LVDS, LVPECL
• Network Interfaces: SPACEWIRE – Remote Terminal Controller and Router, FIREWIRE, 10/100/1000 BT ETHERNET, MIL-STD-1553

EDUCATION

MS Electrical Engineering Utah State University, Logan, UT                          Aug’99 – Nov’01

• Cumulative GPA: 3.6
• Thesis Dissertation Title: The Design of the Communication and Telemetry System Used by the Ionospheric Observation Nanosatellite Formation (ION-F) Mission (DARPA / AFOSR / NASA sponsored program)
• Won 2^nd place for best student paper award at the 15^th AIAA Small Satellite Conference in Logan UT

BE Electronics and Telecom. Engineering, University of Bombay, India                July’94 – May’98

• First Class with Honors

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Systems/Electrical Engineer (Level 5)                             Sep’09-current

Lead Electrical Engineer on RPB (Reconfigurable Processor Board)                                 Mar’10-current

Lead Electrical Engineer on the NGAS Testbed hardware                                     May’10-current

Design Net Engineering, LLC, Colorado, USA   

Senior Engineering Consultant                                   Sep’10 - current

EYASSAT, Colorado USA

Senior Spacecraft Systems Engineer(Level 3-4)                           May’05–Sep’09    

Design Net Engineering, LLC, Colorado, USA

Electrical Engineer (Level 2)                              Feb’02–Apr’05  

Design Net Engineering, LLC, Colorado, USA       

(About 20 Employees Company with start-up like atmosphere)     

Lead Systems Engineer – TT&C Subsystem                        Feb’00–Jan’02

USU/SDL ION-F Program, UT, USA

Senior Lecturer                                          Jun’98–Jul’99

V.E.S.I.T, Polytechnic, Mumbai, INDIA

Hardware Trainee/Intern                              Aug’97–May’98

Arya Communications PVT LTD, Mumbai, INDIA

Hardware Designs

Lead role in design, development, and overall system/project management of cutting edge electronics for a variety of space and commercial applications. Major ones are listed below:

• Power switching board and deployment electronics using RTAX250 FPGA with an embedded 8051 core. Application in small satellites and commercial payloads on reputed launch vehicles (Atlas, Delta, Minotaur, falcon-1 and falcon-9) using commercial and equivalent space-grade electronic parts.  Potential rides – NPS CuL-Lite / ADAMSAT and MIPS (Multiple Interface Payload Subsystem)
• Qualifying and improving the performance of a single axis rate sensor (SARS) using a star tracker as a reference.
• Solar array and shunt controller modules using virtex 2 and virtex 4 FPGA interfaces for active power control and monitoring.
• Power management and distribution unit using COTS (commercial off the shelf) rad-hard (100kRad) DC-DC converters, SMPS (switch mode power supply), LDOs (low dropout), EMI filters, Power supervisors, Watch Dog and RESET circuitry. The power boards were thermal cycled from -40°C through +85°C in a tenney chamber.  Program – PnPSaT (Plug & Play Satellite)
• Robust Grounding and Isolation schemes using opto-isolators and relays.
• Battery Charge controller design for system power management on a spacecraft using RTAX250 FPGA as a μcontroller – Lithium Ion battery pack
• Telemetry and data acquisition electronics for reporting satellite health and status using RT54SX72S FPGA as an embedded controller.
• Design and development of a custom battery charger for a 16-cell Lead-Acid commercial and flight battery pack using UC3906 chip.
• Low & High precision heater and valve control designs to control and monitor physics based experiments on the International Space Station. Program – Low Temperature Micro gravity Physics Facility (LTMPF).
• Digital to Analog Converter (DAC) radiation test board circuit design, schematic capture and layout. The board was extensively tested for DAC single event latch-up (SEL) and total ionizing dose (TID) effects at the Texas A&M Cyclotron Institute.
• Analog filter design for noise suppression in SQUIDS (Super Conducting Quantum Interference Devices)
• Modular & Flexible propulsion subsystem design for small satellites – tank sizing, delta-V requirements, thruster capability, choice of propellants – White Paper submitted to NRL (Naval Research Lab)
• Rigid Flex PCB design and layout for power and signal cables on a university satellite flight mission

Software Designs & Simulations

• Developed ground level test s/w & GUI using Visual Studio 2005 for payload commands & telemetry for sequencing the deployment electronics on Falcon-1
• Implemented a GUI using Lab View for characterizing cells – charge/discharge curves to pick the cells with common characteristics for building a battery pack
• Test & QA engineer on DNet’s Mission and Satellite Design Tool for NASA AMES research center
• Solar array power budget designs using Microsoft Excel and Matlab
• General spacecraft mass, power, propulsion, link budget creation and analyses using Excel and Matlab
• Satellite system study and analysis using STK (Satellite Tool Kit) and Matlab – extensive analysis on ION-F constellation
• Verification and validation of GRT (Germanium Resistor Thermometer) circuit and power filter board design using PSPICE
• Analog and Digital circuit simulations and parametric characterizations using PSPICE

Test and Integration

• Principal system coordinator for successfully integrating, testing and delivering Final Hardware (3 VME chassis containing 5 electronics boards each – all EM/Flight like units) to Jet Propulsion Laboratory, University of New Mexico and Stanford
• DNet Test and Integration engineer for flight hardware on World View and Orbital Express programs for Starsys Research Corporation (SRC)                            
• PnPSat core hardware I&T engineer on EM & Flight units for EPS (Electrical Power Subsystem)           
• ATSB Secondary Payload RSA (Ride Share Adapter) electronics development flown on SPACE-X Falcon-1 – Lead Test/Integration Engineer
• Manage, support and perform onsite/offsite testing of new hardware products, develop test plans, processes, test procedures, verification matrices, test-data collection and interpretation, anomaly investigations.

Systems/Project Engineering and Marketing Skills

• Present conceptual definition, notional ideas, translate system concepts into hw/sw requirements, and generate specifications, detail design documents, I&T instructions, reports and memos.
• Judicious methods of component selection, evaluation, procurement, placement for an entire modular spacecraft design including system level FMECA (Failure Mode Effects and Criticality Analysis)
• Support drafting statement of work, task orders, WBS (work break down structures), flow charts, and functional block diagrams during various phases of a project
• Superior quality organizational, presentation, and customer service skills at all stages of a program
• Provide technical leadership for non-spacecraft elements of a program, such as operations, ground system, integration and test.
• Prepare presentations, exhibits, promotion materials, and flyers for DNet products at trade shows, conferences and marketing booths
• Excellent track record and reputation in providing finalized designs and converting them into products with full co-operation from manufacturing.

Leadership Skills

• Ability to take a design from requirements, design, development to production and final delivery
• Identify relevant market opportunities and provide key contributions to proposals for SBIR funding
• Project management, resource allocation, tracking progress, managing budgets, analyzing workloads, contingency planning, and submitting monthly reports to internal administration team and customers
• Supervising and assisting electrical technicians, assemblers, interns, and engineers, including hiring engineers and consultants
• Actively participate in writing and reviewing new project proposals, design evaluations & peer reviews
• Provide insight and serve on planning and policy-making committees
• A high energy, self-starter attitude with the ability to handle multiple projects simultaneously
• A skillful leader and a great team player with optimism and focus at all levels of the organization.
• TT&C lead on ION-F constellation – University Nanosatellite program; worked at USU (Utah State University) and SDL (Space Dynamics Laboratory) – Feb 2000 to Jan 2002
• Systems Lead on MDA phase-1/phase-2 SBIR for SPSM (Small Payload Support Module) development – Apr 2005 to May 2006

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

·         “TT&C Subsystem for a new generation of Nanosatellites”, a text book based on my Master’s Thesis to be submitted – will be published by VDM Verlag Publishing house.

·         A.Chandrasekaran, James. E. Gutshall “The Design of the Telemetry and Communication System Used by the Ionospheric Observation Nanosatellite Formation (ION-F) Mission”, 15th AIAA/USU Conference on Small Satellites, Logan UT, Aug 2001 – Won second place at the Student Competition

·         A.Chandrasekaran, James. E. Gutshall “The Design of a Terminal Node Controller (TNC) and GPS/Telemetry Beacon for Space and Ground Applications”, 15th AIAA/USU Conference on Small Satellites, Logan UT, Aug2001

·         A. Chandrasekaran, Dr. Charles M. Swenson “Communication Link Analysis for the ION-F Mission (STK® Supports Comm. Study and Analysis)”, INVIEW Magazine, April 2003. Complete technical paper can be found at http://www.stk.com/pdf/white_papers/0303_inview_article.pdf

·         A. Chandrasekaran, Dr. K. Stewart, G. Murphy “Telemetry, Tracking, and Ground Station Architectures for Small Satellite Clusters”, 42nd AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting & Exhibit, Reno, NV, Jan 2004

SOFTWARE SKILLS

Languages/Applications:Matlab (8+ yrs), STK (3+ yrs), VB, Solid Works, Embassy Works, LATEX, MS Office Suite, MS Visual Studio, SmartDraw, C, C++, Shell & PERL scripting

EDA/Cadence tools/ interfaces: Orcad (10+ yrs), Allegro, Altium (6+ yrs), and Pspice (6+ yrs), Lab View

Operating Systems:Windows 7/Vista/XP/NT/2000, LINUX

Experience with clean room (10,000-100,000) & ESD procedures – ESD trained and certified at DNet (6+ yrs)

VISA STATUS:Green Card Holder (Permanent Resident in US)

REFERENCES:References shall be provided upon request.