Leigh Stokes

Engineer

Contact

Wireless Technologies Lab
ICT Centre
PO Box 76
Epping 1710

Themes

• eTechnology

Projects

• Reconfigurable Radio
• ASKAP Smart Feeds

Science Area

• Millimetre-wave Technologies

Biography

1980s: Tutored in statistics and was a Research Assistant for Economics Dept at Wollongong University. Volunteer for Illawarra Community Broadcasters, leading the technical team to acquire a broadcasting licence and build/operate 2 sound studios, a microwave studio/transmitter link and a broadcast transmitter. Recorded for and presented a radio program "Live Gong" that aired live recordings of local musical events. Secretary of Wollongong Poets Union, responsible for organising meetings and readings, funding applications and producing the newsletter. Administrator of Illawarra Playwrights Association. In this position, organised 2 seasons of short plays by local writers at the Workshop Theatre.
1990s: Moved to Sydney when I joined Telstra with aim of working in microwave telecommunications. Allocated to Waverley Radio Terminal at Bondi Junction. Trained in-house in the theory, operation and maintenance of microwave radio relay systems. Learnt "hands-on" about systems that remotely monitored radio alarms and performance. Promoted to Principal Technical Officer in charge of maintenance at Waverley R.T. This position allowed me to take the initiative and undertake special projects aimed at improving the performance of operations. Highlights of my time here include:
• Investigating and reporting on the value of a new test instrument – a selective fade simulator – in the prediction of digital radio links when subjected to real fade events. My statistical analysis showed simulated results were poor predictors of real fade performances. A large expenditure on this test instrument was saved.
• Disputes amongst radio system remote surveillance staff as to performance standards to be applied to Telstra’s inter-regional high-capacity digital radio systems. I researched ITU international connection standards, inferred for national radio links, and interpreted these in terms compatible with Telstra’s remote bit-error-rate monitoring system (DREAMS). I circulated my report to surveillance staff, and while it did not eliminate disputation, it was used as a reference that allowed the argument to move beyond where it had stuck.
• The first installation of some radio systems in a State is sometimes flawed or incomplete. Two such systems emanated from Waverley (Nokia DRS240 1.8GHz 16Mbps 1+1 Supervisory to Canberra and GTE CTR147 8GHz 34Mbps 2+1 DRS to Katoomba). Consequent to my own research and consultations, I instituted upgrades and modifications which resulted in improved performance and enhanced remote supervision for these systems. Field staff visits to remote sites and time to repair were both reduced.
A job I adored was eaten away by a series of reorganisations undertaken by Telstra over the mid and later 90s.
2000s: My first 4 years with CSIRO were closely associated with the Gigahertz Testing Laboratory (GTL): learning how to use some of the equipment, on-wafer probe-stations and vector network analysers for example, and how to assemble equipments to form various types of measurement setups, and then calibrate these setups for accurate measurements. This was also a period of measurement automation, so I had to quickly acquire skills in LabVIEW programming so as to contribute to this process. As well as writing the noise figure automated measurement program from scratch, I have undertaken major upgrades and expansions of programs originally authored by others. Special projects were also fitted into this period. Two of which I am proud are:
• Design and implementation of an MS Access database to log faults, loans and calibrations of GTL equipment. I had no knowledge of Access before I started, and taught myself ‘on the job’. The database is made user friendly by a large set of macros that accomplish complex tasks. In 2006 this database was adopted by 4 laboratories at Marsfield (GTL, the RF Lab and the Antenna Range labs). The one central database serves all labs via a LAN server.
• The charging of project budgets for their use of GTL services was a flat rate for lab time, and so poorly reflected the actual consumption of GTL resources by different projects. On my own initiative, I developed an MS Excel workbook that enabled better recognition of resources consumed by each service while maintaining simplicity for the workbook user. This was accomplished by hiding from the user complicated calculations to generate reports by use of Visual Basic macros driven via worksheet buttons. The workbook is still in use to this day.
More recently I have spent time away from GTL by undertaking work on field trials of prototype systems for the Multi-Gigabit Wireless team. Component acquisition, module assembly and testing, enclosure fit-out design and construction, field site preparation and installation and radio equipment installation and field testing have been some of the tasks I have undertaken. In this way I have contributed to the award-winning prototype demonstrations of a 1Gbps link in 2004 and a 6Gbps link in 2006.

Academic Qualifications

2003	Post-Graduate Certificate, U.T.S., Project Management
1988	Electronics Engineering Certificate, North Sydney TAFE
1978	B.A. Macquarie University, Economics

Recent Professional Experience

1992-1998	Principal Tech. Officer, Waverley Radio Terminal, Telstra.
1999-2003	Research Technical Officer responsible for setups, measurements & software for Gigahertz Testing Facility (GTF) clients.
2004-date	Research Technical Officer, GTF operations and microwave radio prototype testing, assembly, installation and maintenance.

Achievements & Awards

2007	IEEE R&D Excellence Award and CSIRO Chairman's Medal joint winner for Multi-Gigabit mmWave Wireless Demonstrator; Joint winner of "Best Paper Award" at the 2nd International conference on wireless broadband and ultra wideband communications (Auswireless 2007); Millimeter-Wave Best Paper Award. International Joint Conference of the 8th MINT Millimeter-Wave International Symposium (MINT-MIS2007) Symposium on Millimeter Waves (TSMMW2007), and MilliLab Workshop on Millimeter-Wave Technology and Applications, Seoul, Korea.
2006	CSIRO Look Out! Award - Gigabit Wireless Team
2004	CSIRO Performance Cash Award - Gigabit-rate 83GHz radio link.

Summary of Science & Technical Output

Student Supervision

2006-2007	J. Thompson, CSIRO Summer Scholarship
2005-2006	J. Henderson, CSIRO Summer Scholarship

Top 10 Publications

Publication details
L. Stokes, B.H. Smith and G.W. Trott, "Electric car introduction to the Wollongong region: a response to two planning problems", Dept. of Electrical Engineering, Wollongong University, Research Report 1, 1980
J. Mangan and L. Stokes, "The determinants of labour demand in Australian manufacturing", Applied Economics Vol.16 No.3, June 1984
G.P. Timms, D. Abbott, V. Dyadyuk and L. Stokes, "Early results of a rain attenuation study in the 60GHz band", 6th Topical Symposium on Millimeter Waves (TSMMW2004), Yokosuka, Japan, 2004, pp.159-162
V. Dyadyuk, D. Abbott, J.W. Archer, O. Sevimli and L. Stokes, "A W-band high data rate point-to-point link", 6th Topical Symposium on Millimeter Waves (TSMMW2004), Yokosuka, Japan, 2005, pp.33-37
O. Sevimli, V. Dyadyuk, D. Abbott, L. Stokes, S. Smith, J.W. Archer, M. Shen, R. Kendall and J. TEllo, "Multi-gigabit wireless test bed at millimetre waves", IEEE/ACES International Conference on Wireless Communications and Applied Computational Electro
O. Sevimli, V. Dyadyuk, D. Abbott, J. Bunton, R. Kendall, L. Stokes, M. Shen and S. Smith, "Multi-gigabit wireless link development", 1st International Conference on Wireless Broadband and Ultra Broadband Communications (AusWireless'06), March 13-16 20
V. Dyadyuk, L. Stokes and O. Sevimli, "A W-band multi-gigabit wireless link with high spectral efficiency", International Joint Conference of the 9th Topical Symposium on Miliimeter Waves (TSMMW2007) and 8th Millimeter-Wave International Symposium (MINT
V. Dyadyuk, O. Sevimli, J. Bunton, J. Pathikulangara and L. Stokes, "A 6Gbps Millimetre-Wave Wireless Link with 2.4 bits/Hz Spectral Efficiency", IEEE MTT-S International Microwave Symposium (IMS2007), 3-8 June 2007, Honolulu, Hawaii
Val Dyadyuk, John W. Archer and Leigh Stokes, "W-Band GaAs Schottky Diode MMIC mixers for Multi-Gigabit Wireless Communications", 2nd International conference on wireless broadband and ultra wideband communications (Auswireless 2007)
Val Dyadyuk, John D. Bunton, Joseph Pathikulangara, Rodney Kendall, Oya Sevimli, Leigh Stokes and David A. Abbott, "A Multi-Gigabit Mm-Wave Communication System with Improved Spectral Efficiency", Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques Special