Ronald Strauser

EDUCATION

1983 * Indiana University * Bloomington, IN

• MS Computer Science
• GPA => 3.67 of 4.00

1981 * Indiana University * Bloomington, IN

• BA Computer Science & Mathematics
• GPA => 3.50 of 4.00

EXPERIENCE

1993- * Superior Software Systems, Inc. * Westfield, IN

Software Consultant responsible for real-time embedded software development of electronic control units, simulation, and diagnostic tools. Clients include Allison Transmission Division, Delphi Electronics & Safety and Wavetek

Project Summary

• Developed J1939 communication software and operating system software for the electronic controls for a Hybrid Electric Bus using Green Hills Ada/C software development environment hosted in MS Windows.  The target processors were MC68332 and hardware/software integration was performed using HP logic analyzers.  Used Continuus software package for software configuration management.
• Developed communication software utilizing Keyword 2000 and SAE standard Controller Area Network (CAN) protocols for a MC68332 microprocessor based engine control module. The software was developed in Diab Data C on a Sun Sparcstation.
• Developed brake control software for a manual transmission for heavy-duty vehicles, including processing of brake related J1587 messages. Used the Introl C tool set hosted on a Sun Sparcstation and targeted to a MC68H16 microprocessor with HMI emulators for hardware/software integration.
• Led a team responsible for software development for the dash display and propulsion systems in an electric bus. The software was developed in Rational Ada and hosted on a Sun Sparcstation. The target processors were MC68332 and hardware/software integration was performed using HP emulators and logic analyzers. Real-time system monitoring, calibration, and software update to flash memory capabilities were developed and performed with a laptop PC. System communication was implemented via CAN protocol.
• Developed boot software and flash programming capability for a computer controlled propulsion system in an electrically powered tank. Also performed throughput analysis to ensure that system-timing requirements were met. The software was developed in Rational Ada and targeted to a set of MC68020 processors. System communication was implemented via MIL-STD-1553 protocol. A simulation environment was developed on a PC for this project using Alsys Ada, simulating everything external to the propulsion system, including the engine, crew station, and vehicle load.

Hardware summary

HP and Sun Unix-based workstations, Intel 80386/486 PC hardware, MC68332 and MC68HC16 hardware, VME backplane hardware, HMI emulators, HP 64000 emulators, MIL-STD-1553 hardware, Intel 8257 CAN chip, HP logic analyzers and other data acquisition devices.

Software summary

Ada, C, Motorola and Intel assembly, Cadre Teamwork, and UNIX tools – SCCS, shellscript, awk and sed.

1989-93 * Allison Transmission Division * Indianapolis, IN

Software Engineer, member of a team responsible for the real-time embedded software development of electronic transmission controllers, simulators and I/O modules.

Project summary

• Developed IO module driver software for an electronically controlled tank transmission. Devices controlled included solenoids, oil level sensors, position sensors, and temperature sensors. Used Rational Ada hosted on Sun Sparcstation and targeted to MC68020 processors. HP64000 emulators were used for hardware software integration.
• Helped transition their military software development department from Pascal to Ada. This involved performing Ada compiler and tool set evaluation of Sun host and MC68020 target compilers, and porting of transmission control software and simulation software from Pascal to Ada.

Skills summary

HP and Sun Unix-based workstations, DY-4 MC68020 hardware, HMI emulators, HP 64000 emulators, MIL-STD-1553 hardware, HP logic analyzers and other data acquisition devices.

Software summary

Ada, Pascal, Motorola assembly, and UNIX tools – SCCS, shellscript, awk and sed.

1983-89 * Texas Instruments, Inc. * Dallas, TX

Software Engineer, member of a team responsible for the real-time embedded software development of controllers, simulators and I/O modules.

Project summary

• Consulted at Canadair Inc. on the CL227 remotely piloted air vehicle. Performed evaluation of software environment, software methodology, and software as designed and implemented. Redesigned the inter-processor communication scheme and system power on sequence. Also implemented optimization techniques to yield a 13% greater throughput in the system control processor. Required expertise in Pascal, Intel’s 8086/8087 microprocessors and assembly language.
• As a lead software engineer for Texas Instrument’s effort on the Army’s Light Helicopter Experimental (LHX) program, led a team which designed and implemented the communication software which facilitated system wide communication, the local operating system for each data processor unit, and the system control and reconfiguration software. Each was developed in Ada and assembly language, and supported Ada applications in the real-time environment. Required expertise in Ada, real-time operating systems, MIL-STD-1750A microprocessor and assembly language, MIL-STD-1553B bus protocol, DOD-STD-2167A software development standards, and hardware/software integration. Also developed a system simulation in Scheme (a dialect of Lisp).
• Designed and developed an Ada runtime kernel, based on a commercially available uniprocessor Ada compiler and runtime, for a shared memory system consisting of MIL-STD-1750A microprocessors. This involved redesign of the scheduler and inter-processor communication schemes.
• Designed and implemented entirely in assembly language a multi-tasking, interrupt driven, preemptive scheduling executive targeted to the Texas Instruments SBP9989 microprocessor. This executive provided for task management and synchronization, time management, event (interrupt) management, communication management, error management, and system startup and initialization.
• Designed and implemented the user interface to a demonstration system consisting of 1750A microprocessors. This window oriented, menu driven interface was based on Digital Research’s GEM development environment and was implemented in the C language.
• Designed and implemented in Pascal a call processing system on an IBM PC to handle incoming calls and route them based on user touch tone commands. Included multi-level security, speed code dialing with telephone number database, and user definable call sequence to be executed by the PC.

Hardware summary

VAX VMS workstations, IBM PC, Intel 8086/8087 processors, TI9989 microprocessor, TI MIL-STD-1750A microprocessor, MIL-STD-1553 hardware.

Software summary

Ada, C, Pascal, Lisp, Scheme, 1750A assembly, GEM GUI development environment.