Clients
- Arkansas Power Electronics International
- Beta-Rubicon, Inc.
- Bitworks, Inc.
- ITI Communications & Electronics
- LaBarge Electronics
- Wal*Mart Radio Network
- RFSAW
Projects
Charles David Covington – Professional Resume
Charles David Covington
5236 E. Sagely Lane
Fayetteville, AR 72703
479-442-8409
cdc@nwark.com
Objective:
To provide service and create products in the areas of digital signal processing and wireless communications
Educational Record:
1984 - Ph.D. in electrical engineering, 1984.
Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas
Emphasis in the area of speech recognition.
Dissertation title:
Recognition of Initial Consonants in Speech.
Advisor: Behrouz Peikari
Graduate course work included: Digital Signal Processing, Communication Theory, Operating Systems, Discrete Simulation, Computer Graphics, Telecommunications, Digital Processing of Speech Signals, Special Research on the ARPA Speech Understanding Research Project, Digital Telephony.
Overall grade point average at Southern Methodist University was 4.0 on a 4.0 basis.
1975-1976 M.E.E., 1976
Rice University, Houston, Texas
Graduate course work included: Digital Filtering, Stochastic Processes, Information Theory, Detection Theory, Pattern Recognition, Artificial Intelligence, Algorithms and Data Structures, Operating Systems Components, Microprocessor Systems, Advanced Digital Components, Acoustics.
B.S.E.E., 1975
Rice University Houston, Texas
Industrial Experience:
2001- President and CEO, Finite Magic, Inc.
Fayetteville, AR
Designing electronic hardware and writing software for companies.
Clients include Wal*Mart Radio, Lucent, LaBarge Electronics, RF Monolithics, Space Photonics, RFSAW, Avocent, Roku Labs.
Emphasis is on embedded control and wireless design. Responsibilities include all aspects of management, marketing, proposals, subcontracting, and providing technical engineering design services.
Embedded Control
Walmart satellite receiver with analog and digital processing, designed and built
Wireless Keyboard-Video-Mouse (KVM) development, designed hardware and wrote software
Internet appliance with wifi, designed and built
HDTV media player, designed and built
PTZ camera product firmware, debuged and documented
Algorithm Development
Developed algorithm for reading RFID tags, designed and wrote code
Developed algorithm for KVM video compression, designed and wrote code and FPGA design
RF impedance matching simulation software, designed and wrote
Analysis, Due Diligence, Patents
Researched Virtual Satellite multipath multi-satellite communications and wrote concept white paper
Recommended bluetooth wireless component for remote sensor system
Analyzed IEEE1394 over fiber concept
Technical due diligence analysis of telecommunications products
Wrote multiple Virtual Satellite patents, all published as written
Expert witness work
Recovery Projects
Created 150-page documentation of previously undocumented dsp assembly firmware after principal engineer left the company
Recovered firmware of main embedded product after primary software/hardware engineer left the company
Navy UNIJASU (Universal Jet Air Start Unit) controller design cleanup and layout
DSP
Walmart satellite receiver data carrier demodulator, designed and wrote firmware
Walmart satellite dsp uplink modulator ISA card, designed and built
Audio companding encoder and decoder in dsp firmware, designed and wrote dsp code
Designed coding algorithm for acoustic wave based RFID tags
South Korean (Eastel) 3GPP WCMDA cell-phone base station, designed and built
Military
Navy power distribution controller designed and built
Northrop Grumman Multi-role Electronic Scanned Array (MESA) Radar controller test board, designed and built
MESA Radar controller, design review
1998-2001 Independent Telecommunications Consultant
Fayetteville, AR
Working at home for companies in metropolitan electronic centers, particularly Silicon Valley. Major clients address product development in the fields of PC telephony and satellite broadcasting. Expertise is offered primarily in the field of Digital Signal Processing (DSP) and RF design.
1991-1998 Senior Engineer, Artran, Inc.
Springdale, AR
Responsibilities over product development and maintenance and supervising junior engineers, concentrating specifically on digital signal processing (DSP) applications. Experiences include analog and digital circuit design, RF design, power switching, remote control, 68HC11 assembly, C code, OrCAD and Tango schematic and layout, mechanical system modeling, local area network design, and personal computer configuration and diagnosis.
Designs using DSP include the ASR*III satellite receiver present in 2400 Wal*Mart stores in the US and Canada, still in service today. The receiver uses DSP to filter and compand the audio and demodulate channel identification and data signals. A custom DSP card for the PC with six ADSP2111 processors creates the composite signal at the uplink site at the Wal*Mart home office.
Signal processing techniques have also been applied to weigh scale data, adaptive control in a poultry plant, and in a speech compression task over a cellular telephone channel.
1990-1991 President and CEO, Strategic Telecommunications, Inc.
Fayetteville, AR
Founded a business to service the data communications industry with modems, EtherNet hubs, terminal servers, routers, T-1 multiplexers, and CSU/DSU's. The company served as a Value Added Reseller for Xyplex, Inc. Sold my interest in the company to the cofounder.
1988 Summer Fellow, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, OH
Summer Faculty Research Program
Air Force Office of Scientific Research
Reported to Tim Anderson
Research included implementing six neural network types and two recently introduced auditory models, including modeling the dynamics of the basilar membrane. Also supervised a graduate student from the University of Arkansas.
1986-1987 Consultant
American Data Systems
Dallas, TX
Reporting to Ira McComic
Small Business Innovations Research Grant from DOE to produce an effective speech record, playback, and edit capability for the Apple IIgs home computer for widespread dissemination to educational users.
1985 Consultant, Texas Instruments, Corporate Engineering Center
Dallas, Texas
Reported to Dr. Richard H. Wiggins
Responsibilities included learning how to program the TI Explorer Lisp Workstation and delivering a one week in-house course on Explorer programming.
1985 Consultant, American Data Systems
Dallas, Texas
Reported to Ira McComic, President
Designed and built a system to record and reproduce speech sounds on the Apple II home computer.
1982-1984 System Manager, Commodore Business Machines, Speech Technology Division
Dallas, Texas
Reported to Dr. Richard H. Wiggins, Division Director
Responsibilities included managing a DEC VAX 11/750 computer system with 20 users, writing application programs for interactive speech analysis and processing Application programs performed linear predictive analysis and used full screen data editing, graphics display, real-time acquisition and synthesis, and storing of speech data. This effort supported the Commodore 64 home computer with speech for game and educational software. I also managed a Text-to-Speech project six man-months in scope resulting in a system supporting convenient editing of translation rules and LPC allophones.
1982 Resident Consultant, United Technologies, Inc., Building Automation
Dallas, Texas
Reported to Dr. John Bellamy
Designed software and hardware to generate and receive DTMF tones, call progress tones, and modem signals of various speeds for a private branch exchange (PBX) telephone system in development.
1981 Research Engineer, Texas Instruments, Central Research Laboratory
Dallas, Texas
Reported to Dr. George R. Doddington.
Used an interactive graphics system to process digitized speech data by extracting initial consonants for future recognition experiments. There were 200 words spoken by each of 154 speakers. This data set was central to my Ph.D. research.
1976-1980 Development Engineer, Motorola, Inc., Communications Division
Fort Worth, Texas
Experience related to the design of commercial 2-way FM mobile radios operating in the 25-500 MHz frequency range and offering transmit powers from 20 to 110 watts and receive sensitivities on the order of 0.25uv 20dBQ. Assignments included design and implementation of transmit and receive channel oscillators and transmit/receive antenna relays for all bands of the MITREK radio line. Work also involved the design of a UHF harmonic filter and spurious conducted and radiated signal verification. Efforts toward designing a cost effective power control circuit for SYNTOR resulted in a disclosure to the Motorola patent committee and subsequent filing with the United States Patent Office.
Teaching Experience:
1984-1991 Assistant Professor, University of Arkansas
Fayetteville, Arkansas
Courses taught include Control Systems, Circuits I, Electric Circuits and Machinery, Digital Processing of Speech Signals, and Digital Signal Processing.
Responsibilities also include research, advising, committees, and student organizations.
Two MSEE candidates are being supervised, as well as other students involved in the research projects mentioned below and in special project courses.
1980-1981 Instructor Southern Methodist University
Dallas, Texas
Taught two semesters of circuit design and associated laboratories. One course was videotaped, taught to a live studio audience, and simultaneously broadcast through closed circuit television to ten remote industrial sites.
Research Grants:
1989 Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) and Universal Energy Systems
Follow-on grant to continue research on auditory models specifically predicting hydrodynamics of the basilar membrane
Spring $30,972 Auditory Modeling
1988 Texas Instruments - commercialization of the GOSPL system under development and the creation of a DSP library of routines for Explorer/Odyssey
Spring $22,159 DSP Workstation
Spring $10,000 DSP Toolkit
Summer $3,408 DSP Toolkit
1987 Texas Instruments - continuation of the 1986 initial grant below in the form of three separate grants for
Spring $14,791
Summer $23,889
Fall $15,236
1986 Texas Instruments - "Complex Real Time Digital Signal Multiprogramming Algorithms with Application to Graphically Controlled System Prototyping"
Grant included $37,046 support for two students and $117,000 in the form of a Texas Instruments Explorer lisp machine with special purpose hardware and artificial intelligence software.
Publications:
1989 "Correction for an Auditory Model," Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Dec. 1989.
1987 with Gass, et. al., "Multiple Digital Signal Processor Environment for Intelligent Signal Processing," Proc. IEEE, vol. 75, no. 9, pp. 1246-1259, Sept. 1987.
1983 "A Formant Estimating Equation Useful in a Graphically Controlled Speech Synthesizer," IEEE Transactions on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing, vol. ASSP-21, pp. 736-738, June 1983.
Conference Papers:
1987 "Graphic Oriented Signal Processing Language - GOSPL," Proc. Speech Tech '87, New York, April 1987.
1987 "Graphic Oriented Signal Processing Language - GOSPL," Proc. IEEE ICASSP, Dallas, April 1987.
1985 "Cubic Spline Modeling of Speech Spectra," Proc. IEEE ICASSP, Tampa, March 1985.
Reports:
1989 "Auditory Modeling," Final Report submitted to Universal Energy Systems under Air force Office of Scientific Research contract F49620-88-C-0053.
1988 "Auditory Modeling," Final Report submitted to Universal Energy Systems under Air Force Office of Scientific Research contract F49620-86-R-0004.
1981 "A Study of the Advanced Research Projects Agency Speech Understanding Research Project," term paper for a special studies course under Dr. Richard H. Wiggins at Southern Methodist University.
1976 "Oscillator Report," Internal Report, Motorola, Inc.
College Achievements:
1973-1975 Chief Engineer Radio Station KTRU-FM, Rice University
1. Built Digital Monitor and Remote Control (DIMARC)
2. Changed the transmitter from monaural to stereo
3. Changed transmitter power from 10 watts to 250 watts
1975 Designed and built a Differential Rate Pulse Meter for the Rice University Chemistry Department mass spectrometer data analysis.
Awards and Honors:
1987 Outstanding Faculty Award
Presented by the Arkansas Academy of Electrical Engineers
1981 Outstanding Graduate Student Award
Presented by Graduate Student Council, Southern Methodist University
1981 Honorable Mention, Johns Hopkins First National Search for Personal Computing Aids to the Handicapped, Regional Competition at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, Clear Lake, Texas.
A patent disclosure was filed with Texas Instruments citing Dr. Richard H. Wiggins as co-inventor. The device allows the mechanical control of a digital speech synthesizer by using an Apple II home computer with graphics tablet interfaced to the TMS5200 Speak and Spell integrated circuit.
1975 Brown Scholarship, applied to first semester in graduate school at Rice University.
1972-1976 Rice President's Honor Roll, six semesters.
2007 US Patent 7246183, “Phase optimization for wireless KVM transmission”
Registrations:
1980-1987 Registered Professional Engineer in Texas, #48228.
1986- Registered Professional Engineer in Arkansas, #6379.
Memberships:
1985- Eta Kappa Nu 1982- Tau Beta Pi
1981-1983 National Society of Professional Engineers
1981-1983 Texas Society of Professional Engineers
1980- Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing Society, and others
Licenses:
1973-1978 First Class Radio Telephone Operator License.
1976- Extra Class Amateur Radio License, WA5TGF.
Personal:
Born in Little Rock, Arkansas on July 11, 1953. Member of University Baptist Church of Fayetteville, Arkansas. Married and has four children. Interests include camping, canoeing, hiking, choir, and chess.
