MEI Conference 21 st May 2007 Mathematics and Engineering at Work Dawn Ohlson Director, Educational...

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Mathematics and Engineering at Work

Dawn OhlsonDirector, Educational AffairsThales UK Plc

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Background

University of OxfordMasters in Engineering & Computer Science

Racal Avionics/ThalesSummer Placements as Hardware EngineerGraduate position as Software EngineerSystems EngineeringProgramme & Bid ManagementStrategyDirector, Educational Affairs

All use Mathematics in a different way

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Who are Thales?

Australia10 locations

Latin America10 locations

North America30 locations

Europe220 locations

Middle East20 locations

Africa5 locations

Asia40 locations inc. 3 in Korea

68,000 people in 50 countries 8,800 people in the UK 2006 sales: €12.6bn

Core Businesses: Aerospace Defence Security

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S/W Engineering - Search and Rescue Steering Algorithms

Creeping Line Ahead Expanding Box Sector Search

And then sonobuoy drop patterns…

And then transition down to hover…

And anything else the customer wanted!

X

X

Y

Y

θXwind

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Programme and Bid Management

Almost accountancy

Engineering Estimates

Progress reports for programmes ETCs - Estimates to complete (How much time will it take?) EACs – Estimate at completion (how much will we have

spent?) Earned Value (what is the work I have done to date worth?)

Recognise when it is wrong!

Sums not hard

– consequences of error are HUGE!

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Strategy

Strategic Business Planning process 10 year top level view 3 year view in detail

Consolidation of business position based on Investment from PV funding Potential sales/Probabilities of wins Engineering Estimates

Building castles on quick sand

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Model of Speech Production

P

1ppnnnn spaes

Time domain equation

zEzpa1zSzAzS n

P

1p

pnnnn

Frequency domain equation

Speech is modelled as the output of a quasi-stationary all-pole filter excited by either white noise or a white periodic waveform

A(z)

PeriodicPulses

WhiteNoise

VoicedExcitation

UnvoicedExcitation

Vocal tract modelAmplitudeSource model

E(z)

Speech

S(z)

Thales Research - Speech coding

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Closing thoughts

Mathematics has underpinned a varied career

Mostly A-level type maths

Graduates joining Thales work on anything and everything.

Maths could be an attraction to Women