Ron Morgan is a Staff Engineer in the Robotic Hardware Systems Group. He has worked in Aerospace for over 29 years, first as an assembly and test technician and later as a design engineer at Bertea Corp.,* a manufacturer of aircraft flight control hydraulics.
Ron came to JPL in September of 1991 as a contractor working on the CRAF-Cassini flight project and became a "JPLer" in August of 1996.
Ron's work experience also includes a brief period at an Electronic Design Services (primarily Schematic Capture and PCB Layout) startup, Design Solutions, Inc. from Feb. '90 through Sept. '91.
Ron works primarily as an electronic design engineer but has completed several mechanical design tasks for JPL also.
Ron lives with his wife and two young sons in Pasadena, a short walk from JPL.
* Bertea Corp. was purchased by Parker Hannifin Corp. and became its Control Systems Division in 1981.
B.S. Electronic Engineering, Cum Laude, 1987
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
Ron worked full time while completing an AA degree from Orange Coast College (Costa Mesa, CA) in June '84. After transferring to Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, in the fall of '84, he worked summers for Bertea and attended Cal Poly full time until completing his Bachelors Degree. He financed his education from his savings and graduated with no student loan debt.
Current FY06 Task:
Technology Development: Distributed Brushless Motor Controller Electronics: ASIC Development Testing
Previous Tasks (in reverse chronological order):
Deep Space 2 (DS2) Mars Impacter Follow-On-Experiment (Impact testing of a flight-like probe): Circuit Design and Schematic Capture
Moon Telescope Rover: Wheel Mechanical Design and Development
Sub-Surface Explorer: Pneumatic Powered Probe Testing, Spinning Hammer Probe Mechanical Design and Development
Muses-C Nano-Rover: Flight Electronics Schematic Capture, Laser Communication Experiment Laser Diode Testing
DS2 Accelerometer Impact Testing and Characterization: Test Probe Electronics Lead, Impact testing Support
DS2 Flight Project: Test Electronics and Environmental Testing Lead
Galileo Low Gain Antenna Mission Flight Software (FSW) Development: Science Simulator Support Equipment Circuit Design and Schematic Capture, FSW Development testing, Command and Data Subsystem Testbed Sequence Testing Support
Cassini Attitude and Articulation Control System Flight Printed Circuit Board (PCB) design
Cassini Inter-Subsystem Bus Interface Circuits: Circuit Design, Schematic capture, PCB design, Circuit Testing, Worst Case stress and timing analysis
Cad/Cae tools: Cadence, Mentor, and Orcad Schematic Capture and PCB Layout, Solidworks, COSMOS FiniteElement Analysis, LabView