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"Engineers operate at the interface between science and society." -- Dean Gordon Brown."
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." --Arthur C. Clarke
"The first 90 percent of the code accounts for the first 90 percent of the development time...The remaining 10 percent of the code accounts for the other 90 percent of the development
time." -- Tom Cargill
"Better to spend ten hours engineering a solution than to spend one hour doing the work." -- Clark Guest
"If you don't know where you're going, you can't get lost." - Confuscious
"If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable." - Seneca
"The human spirit needs to accomplish, to achieve, to triumph to be happy." -- Ben Stein
"The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled." -Plutarch
"Every successful system accumulates parasites." - Thomas Ray
"All truth goes through three stages. First it's ridiculed, then it's opposed, and finally it's accepted as being self-evident." --Schopenauer
"You can always tell a pioneer by the arrows in his back." - Unknown
"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that
is familiar with it." -Max Planck
"The Internet is the largest engineering project ever undertaken by mankind." - DAP
"The fatal tendency of mankind to leave off thinking about a thing which is no longer doubtful is the cause of half their errors" -- John Stuart Mill
"Civilization exists by geologic consent, subject to change without notice." -Will Durant
"On the face of it, it must be a BAD cause which will not bear discussion. Truth seeks light, instead of shunning it." - Horace Mann
"A good algorithm on a PC is better than a mediocre algorithm on a supercomputer." - DAP
"The more ambitious plan may have more chances of success" - G. Polya
"In a band of chimpanzees, a feral child would be the weakest link." - Unknown
"No great thing can ever get off the ground if all the reasonable objections to it are considered first." - Samuel Johnson
"Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats." --Howard Aiken, IBM engineer
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not "Eureka!" (I found it!) but "That's funny ..." -Isaac Asimov
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SUMMARY
Dr. Palmer works in applied physics and information science. He specializes in solving problems requiring digital
signal processing, unconventional imaging, digital communications, system engineering, high-speed digital
networks, ASICs and real-time computer software. He has assisted in the startup and funding of many high-technology
companies. At Cal-(IT)2 he is developing innovative new technologies in embedded network processors, wireless
systems and medical instrumentation.
RESEARCH AREAS
Technology for Emergency Medicine
As part of several programs, such as WIISARD (and several startups), I
have been privileged to work with several excellent physicians in applying advanced technology to lifesaving
medical devices for emergency departments.
CalRadio - Embedded Network Processor Testbed
This is a unique 802.11b testbed. It incorporates an RF (802.11) unit, TI microprocessor and audio interface.
It allows the researcher to reprogram the MAC to any protocol in 'c' language. See the
CalRadio website for more information.
VISA
The Virtual Instruction Set Architecture for future processors is a type of processor that has an extensible instruction set. It provides a clear
migration path from software to hardware for greatly enhanced speed and code resuability.
High-speed network switches and protocols
Switches with the ability to route large volumes of video data are an area of interest. A startup I was associated with, Sistolic Inc., endeavored to
build the world's fastest switches.
Neural Finite Element Models
Finite Element Modeling of systems can be greatly enhanced by utilizing the power of neural networks to emulate
the physical processes in the nodes. I have used this scheme for flow models (Navier-Stokes) and found
it to be very effective at increasing the speed and accuracy of modeling.
EDUCATION
Ph.D. Physics, Yale University
M. Phil. Physics, Yale University
B.A. Physics, Magna Cum Laude, UCSD Revelle College
BACKGROUND
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Path 1 Network Technologies Inc., CTO, COO, Chief Scientist, Co-Founder
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Sistolic, Inc., CTO, Co-Founder
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TrexCommunications Corp., Founding Scientist
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ThermoTrex Corp., Sr. Supervisory Scientist
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HNC Software, Inc., R&D Director
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Western Research Corporation, Sr. Supervisory Scientist
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DR3-DataDesign, Inc. President and Founder
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M/A-COM LINKABIT, Inc., Systems Engineer/Manager
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University of California, San Diego, Visiting Lecturer
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Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Assistant Research Physicist
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University of California, NASA Contract, Engineer
Email: dapalmer@soe.ucsd.edu
Phone: +1(858)822-4579
Mobile: +1(858)945-3684
URL: http://www.calit2.net/
University of California, San Diego
9500 Gilman Dr.
La Jolla, CA 92093-0436
PATENTS
7,143,563 Tie and tie method for binding together adjacent support elements
6,661,804 Methods and apparatus for providing quality-of-service guarantees in computer networks
6,285,481 Free-space laser communications error control system
6,246,702 Methods and apparatus for providing quality-of-service guarantees in computer networks
6,141,355 Time-synchronized multi-layer network switch for providing quality of service guarantees in computer networks
6,012,330 Method and apparatus for the artificial triggering of lightning
5,861,817 System for, and method of, displaying prices on tags in supermarkets
5,830,150 Method and apparatus for displaying data
5,435,312 Acoustic imaging device
5,417,218 Acoustic imaging device
5,357,964 Doppler imaging device
5,305,752 Acoustic imaging device
5,195,135 Automatic multivariate censorship of audio-video programming by user-selectable obscuration
MY MOST FUN PROJECTS
Dennis Conner Sailing Simulator
Before the 1992 America's Cup Race I developed a sailing simulator for the Dennis Conner team that ran on a 33MHz PC and accurately predicted and
displayed the response of America's Cup class racing yachts in realistic sailing conditions. The model continuously solved the Euler equations for the
vessel motion while taking into account all of the AeroHydrodynamics of the hull, rigging, fin, rudder and sails. The bottom fell out of the market for
simulators at this time but the math/program is still there and could be resurrected.
Adaptive Optics
While at Western Research, later renamed TheroElectron Technologies, I worked on the 500 element adaptive optics system with many brilliant scientists.
This was in the mid to late eighties, way ahead of its time. The same systems are used today in earth-bound astronomical telescopes for atmospheric
correction i.e. to remove the "twinkle" from stars.
Bomb Detection
I assisted Thermedics Detection in devloping software to analyze the signals from their Egis, portable bomb detection and drug detection system. The
system was a portable detection station using gas chromatography/mass spectrometry to find chemical traces at the part per billion level or much
better. The software utilized a neural network to not only detect the characteristic signals of the explosive but also to give a confidence level to
the signal interpretation as an aid in characterizing the importance of the finding.
Shelf Tag
The shelf tag was a device to display the price information on a product on supermarket shelves. Normally this is done with little stickers called skew
cards. As many as 10,000 of these are changed in a week in retail outlets and mistakes often occur. The shelf tag I patented with Marco Thompson
utilized a solar photovoltaic power source, LCD display and optical receiver. A handheld unit beamed a laser at the tag to program it - noting location
and performance. See
US Pat # 5,861,817.
Toy
I was hired as a consultant to develop a system for wireless communications for a toy by a huge media/entertainment conglomerate! The toy had to be
manufactured for less than $4 and had to include a means for communicating wirelessly in extremely diverse environments. Multi-path and fading channels
were just a part of the problem - poor quality transmit and receive components had to be accomodated.In the end, a Non-orthogonal Frequency Division
Multiplexing scheme was used.
IXA Architecture
At Path 1 network technologies we sought to develop a powerful video gateway capable of taking 160 channels of video into and out of a 1 Gbit IP
transport stream for the cable industry. The job was complicated by sensitive timing issues, packet loss, poor QoS and rigid demands of the cable
industry. We chose to use the Intel IXA architecture for this job and were eternally grateful. What appeared to be a job suited for ASICs or gatearrays
was accomodated in micro-code with the ability to alter the code remotely.
Ultrasonic imaging
At ThermoTrex Corp. it was decided to attempt internal ultrasonic imaging (medical) through a new process - utilizing phase! Most ultrasound machines
utilize time-of-flight information to reconstruct an image. We digitized in quadrature, extracted amplitude and phase and then through a complex
reconstruction process generated extremely accurate images.
TRIADS
TRIADS was an interactive Digital Signal Processing development environment. It ran on PCs and enabled the user to quickly develop and test complex
optical processing systems. It was developed at ThermoTrex and utilized extensively to develop all forms of unconventional imaging systems such as:
medical imaging, utlrasound imaging, x-ray imaging and microwave imaging systems. It was sold commercially for a number of years.
Finite element Hydro Code
I was asked to develop a re-entry vehicle simulation to yield drag, IR signature, pressures and fluxes as nose-cones entered the atmosphere. This was a
"Star Wars" project for sensor development. The real challenge. It had to be done in 30 days with full graphical, real-time display. I chose to do it
on a PC to get fast turn-around from code modification to inspection and back. Surprisingly it only took 2000 lines of code and produced results that
were comparable to the specialized super-computing hydro-code machines at Los Alamos.
Eagle Eye
Eagle Eye was a system for detecting and tracking people and objects at great distance and for providing covert communications. The system utilized a
scanning laser beam, atomic line filter and a corner-cube retroreflector. A helicopter flying over the ocean at 10,000 feet could locate a seaman or
downed pilot almost instantly. The retroreflector for the person on the ground carried a price of about $1.00. For locating downed pilots, lost hikers,
sailors at sea etc. the system was unexcelled. The retros could be placed in helmets, on liferafts or in emergency kits. For the military the system
was designed to allow "spoiling" or modulating the retro for highly covert communications. The applications in IFF are numerous. I originated this
system in 1988 at ThermoTrex and the company demonstrated it and spent five years trying to market it to the DoD, Coast Guard etc. Everyone turned it
down. It has recently been re-invented at DARPA and is receiving lots of attention - 15 years later.
VideoFreedom
VideoFreedom is a system for allowing television viewers to control the explicit content of television programming on their own televisions. The system
begins by the producers of television content encoding tiny blocks of data in their videos showing where, in each frame, there is explicit content and
what the level is and then the television at home can blur that portion of the picture. Voila, producers have the freedom to film what they want and
viewers can select their level of comfort. See: www.videofreedom.tv.
Anesthesia Monitor
Working with Dr. N. Ty Smith, of the UCSD Medical Center I set about developing a display system that would allow anesthesiologists to view many
hundreds of monitored parameters and quickly look for trouble and diagnose the system. The result was a kind of spreadsheet/strip chart that was
capable of being scrolled, expaned and lumped into systems for speedy monitoring. It was awarded US Patent
#5,830,150.
Printed Sheet Music
With a group of friends (including the chairman of the UCSD music department) we created a startup to develop a musical store retrieval and printing
system for music stores. Using the new CDROM medium we wanted to build kiosks for music stores that would allow enthusiasts to print any of thousands
of musical scores or to put them in electronic (MIDI) form. My task was to develop the encoding and printing format. I created the format and a font in
Postscript that did the trick (for examples of the printed scores see: Brahms.pdf and Scarlatti.pdf).
The company was a resounding technical and marketing success but it failed because the main U.S. copyright holder would not grant us licenses for the
scores!
BoltBlocker
BoltBlocker is a patented technique
US Pat #6,012,330 for triggering lightning by shooting a jet of conductive water/salt solution a hundred meters in the air during an electrical
storm. The jet is triggered by an electric field meter at just the right time before a natural bolt would occur. The lightning discharge can then be
safely guided to ground. Think of it as a 300 foot tall lightning rod erected in a tenth of a second. The object of BoltBlocker is to protect people
and structures from lightning. More details can be found at www.boltblocker.com.

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Picture of a thunderhead over the Salton sea as seen from Shelter Island looking towards Downtown San Diego.
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