Based in Central Pennsylvania, Esterline Research and Design is an electrical engineering
design firm with an emphasis in the frequency control industry. Our expertise comes from the design and testing of high precision crystal oscillators, for military and commercial applications. Our team has a combined 70 years experience in every facet of oscillator design and testing. The team's primary research interests are the improvement of embedded time bases, including all aspects of design, manufacture, and test. As a result, our team provides results for difficult problems that require unique, robust solutions with superior quality and reliability.
John C. Esterline, M. Eng. E.E. CEO Personal Objective Research interests focus on frequency control. Improvement of time base environmental performance, such as temperature stability, thermal hysteresis, acceleration sensitivity, aging, etc. Education Pennsylvania State University Middletown, PA (2011) Masters of Engineering in Electrical Engineering Thesis: G-Compensated Crystal Oscillator Bachelors of Science in Electrical Engineering (2007) Senior Project: Automated Final Test System for Crystal Oscillators
Electronic Institutes Middletown, PA (1999) Associates degree in Computer and Engineering Technology Patents / Patent Applications Name: Crystal oscillator with reduced acceleration sensitivity Publication #: US8188800 B2 Publication Date: May 29, 2012 Description: Reduction of acceleration sensitivity of crystal oscillator through the use of multiple crystals to passively compensate for the acceleration sensitivity. Name: Crystal oscillator with reduced acceleration sensitivity Publication #: US8525607 B2 Publication Date: September 3, 2013 Description: Expanded claim set for reduction of acceleration sensitivity of crystal oscillator through the use of multiple crystals to passively compensate for the acceleration sensitivity. Name: Crystal oscillator with reduced acceleration sensitivity Application #: PCT/US2009/063422 Publication Date: May 14, 2010 Description: European Application for reduction of acceleration sensitivity of crystal oscillator through the use of multiple crystals to passively compensate for the acceleration sensitivity.
Name: Neural network frequency control Application #: US 13/570,563 Publication Date: February 13, 2013 Description: Application for compensation of crystal oscillator environmental effects including temperature, trim effect, etc.
Name: Neural network frequency control Application #: PCT/US2012/050164 Publication Date: March 28, 2013 Description: European application for compensation of crystal oscillator environmental effects including temperature, trim effect, etc. Publications Trim Effect Compensation Using an Artificial Neural Network European Frequency and Time Forum & International Frequency Control Symposium (EFTF/IFC), 2013 Joint
Temperature Compensation of Crystal Oscillators Using an Artificial Neural Network Frequency Control Symposium (FCS), 2012 IEEE International Crystal Oscillators: History, Parameters, and Types Microwave Product Digest, July 2009
Phase Noise: Theory Versus Practicality Microwave Journal, April 2008
Presentations Trim Effect Compensation Using an Artificial Neural Network European Frequency and Time Forum & International Frequency Control Symposium (EFTF/IFC), 2013 Joint
Compensation of Crystal Oscillators Using ANN Microwave Theory & Techniques (MTT) Society of the IEEE Long Island Section February 2013 Temperature Compensation of Crystal Oscillators Using an Artificial Neural Network Frequency Control Symposium (FCS), 2012 IEEE International May 2012 Employment Chief Executive Officer Esterline Research and Design, Shiremanstown PA May 2014 Present Consulting in the areas of: Frequency control RF systems Test and automation Ceramic substrate and package design General microcontroller applications Design and manufacture of high precision RF test equipment such as: Multi-channel RF frequency counter system Multi-channel programmable mixer/downconverter Multi-channel low noise synthesizer Multi-channel high precision temperature measurement system Senior Design Engineer Greenray Industries, Mechanicsburg PA May 2006 - April 2014
Design of precision TCXO's, OCXO's and VCXO's for commercial, military and high shock/vibration applications. Research and Development of new oscillator compensation methods. Interfacing with patent attorneys to create patents around new technologies. Writing and publishing technical articles related to oscillators. Lecturing at conferences and customer locations on oscillators and new patented technologies. Ceramic package design for commercial, military, and high shock/vibration applications. Writing and implementing ATPs and QTPs for various oscillator designs. Perform failure analysis and travel to customer sites to resolve issues in the field. Developing and implementing of DOEs to resolve issue and improve reliability and performance of various oscillators. Design and implementation of production environmental test systems for TCXOs, OCXOs, VCXOs, and ANNCXOs.
Senior Troubleshooting Technician CTS Reeves October 1999 - August 2002
Managed a staff of 3 assemblers, and 2 technicians for a military grade OCXO. Responsible for making sure line output met production needs of the program. Oversaw all aspects of the production from assembly, test, aging, environmental screening, and packaging. Aided other production lines in test and troubleshooting of product to ensure on-time delivery of a broad range of TCXO, OCXO, and VCXO products.
Alan W. Snavely, COO Personal Objective To develop new techniques to improve the speed and precision of frequency and time measurements and to employ those new techniques in the form of test hardware as either stand-alone equipment for Engineering testing or embedded in systems for production testing. Education Electronic Institutes Highspire, PA (1974) Associates in Electrical Engineering Technology Patents Co-inventor on a provisional patent relating to Oscillator Technology filed February 2014. Employment Chief Operations Officer Esterline Research and Design,Shiremanstown, PA, May 2014 Present Consulting in the areas of: Frequency control RF systems Test and automation Ceramic substrate and package design General microcontroller applications Design and manufacture of high precision RF test equipment such as: Multi-channel RF frequency counter system Multi-channel programmable mixer/downconverter Multi-channel low noise synthesizer Multi-channel high precision temperature measurement system Senior Design Engineer Greenray Industries, Mechanicsburg PA June 2003 April 2014 Design, construction, and maintenance of a wide variety of automated test systems for the validation of parametric performance of Greenray oscillators including:Temperature Test Systems for oscillator frequency vesus temperature compliance testing. Temperature Test Systems for calibration of TCXO designs incorporating both resistor-thermistor networks as well as multi-order polynomial ASIC's.Test Systems to demonstrate frequency aging compliance. Automated turn hunt systems for OCXO's. Design of precision TCXO's, OCXO's and VCXO's for commercial, military and high shock/vibration applications. Ceramic package design for commercial, military, and high shock and vibration applications. Technical writer for ATP's and QTP's needed for military-grade oscillators. Perform failure analysis and travel to customer sites to resolve issues in the field. Performed numerous DOEs and generated numerous internal technical reports detailing the results of these experiments.
Engineering Manager CTS Corp., CTS Frequency Control Products, Carlisle PA October 1997 June 2003 Managed a staff of five engineers and one technician in the Discrete Oscillator Engineering Department. This department was responsible for producing the OCXO and TCXO designs primarily used in telecom, military, and test equipment applications. Responsibilities included scheduling and timeline/project planning activities for subordinates as well as actual test system and oscillator design activity as needed. Primary Design Engineer for military-grade oscillator designs and supporting testing hardware and software. Design Engineer Reeves Hoffman Division, Carlisle PA October 1985 October 1997 Test System design (aging and temperature test systems). Other responsibilities included the design of TCXO's incorporating resistor-thermistor networks as well as OCXO's, and VCXO's for both commercial and military applications.
Terry L. Hitt, CSDO Personal Objective To develop state of the art microcontroller firmware to meet the needs of any application, with a focus in frequency control and test and automation. Employment Chief Software Development Officer Esterline Research and Design May 2014 Present Consulting in the areas of: Frequency control RF systems Test and automation Ceramic substrate and package design General microcontroller applications Design and manufacture of high precision RF test equipment such as: Multi-channel RF frequency counter system Multi-channel programmable mixer/downconverter Multi-channel low noise synthesizer Multi-channel high precision temperature measurement system Systems Engineer Greenray Industries, Mechanicsburg PA Oct 1997 April 2014 Design, construction, and maintenance of a wide variety of automated test systems for the validation of parametric performance of Greenray oscillators: Temperature Test Systems for oscillator frequency verses temperature compliance testing. Temperature Test Systems for calibration of TCXO designs incorporating resistor- thermistor networks. Test Systems to demonstrate frequency aging compliance. Automated crystal turn hunt systems for OCXO's Micro-computer programming and implementation for a variety of applications: In-line functionality testers for Contract Manufacturers to test a variety of wire-bonded and flip-chip assemblies built for Greenray. Assembly language programming of various single-core and multi-core microcontrollers. Designed and built a monitoring system with alarms and graphical visual display to alert personnel of elevated CO2 levels and exposure limits. Developed the firmware for a vibration-compensated, OCXO-disciplined TCXO. Developed TCXO ASIC emulator for use with ANNCXO development. Developed multi-core microcontroller firmware for the production implementation of Greenrays patented ANN technology. Design of precision MCXO's and DCXOs for commercial and military programs. Design of GPS-disciplined OCXO.
Products Esterline Research and Design aims to change the way production testing of RF systems is approached. We are designing several pieces of high end RF test gear to ease the common problems encountered in production testing of RF systems.
Services
We offer consulting services focused on frequency control and custom micro-controller solutions. Reference: Temperature compensation of crystal oscillators using an Artificial Neural Network
For more information on consulting services contact us