Details

Ronald Hugh Barker FIET papers

UK0108 NAEST 301

1938- 2024

4 boxes plus digital files

Ronald Barker was known as Roy so will be referred to as this throughout. Born 28 October 1915 in Dublin, Ireland. Due to the sectarian troubles in Belfast Roy returned to England with his mother. Roy went to secondary school at The Cedars School in Leighton Buzzard where he achieved a place in the 'first class honours ' list in 1931. He remained here to take his higher school certificate in Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry in 1933. In 1934 Roy started at University College, Hull which led to a first-class honours degree in Physics awarded by London University. In 1954 Roy was awarded a PhD in Digital Servo Systems. Between 1938-1941 Roy began work with Standard Telephones & Cables in North Woolwich. He was in the thermionic valve department with a specific assignment to design dental X-ray tubes and equipment. When wartime came, Roy had a reserved occupation. In March 1941 he was appointed as a temporary Experimental Officer at the Signals Experimental Establishment (SEE) on Woolwich Common. SEE was renamed Signals Research and Development Establishment (SRDE) and brought within the Ministry of Supply. Between 1941-1946 Roy oversaw a programme on the use of Frequency Modulation for army communications. By the end of 1946 he was appointed as Senior Scientific Officer through a Civil Service Open Competition. By the mid 1940s to early 1950s, Roy supervised a team of 12 scientists and engineers at SRDE in Steamer Point, Christchurch, involved with telemetry in the UK guided weapons programme. Telemetry was in its infancy and the papers written by Roy at this time were all to do with researching the problems encountered. Roy was responsible for devising, developing and producing the first British telemetry system for guided weapons. In 1946 Roy went to the USA to attend the first International Telemetry Symposium, code named Bumblebee. At the Symposium 37 papers were presented covering guided-missile and pilotless-aircraft. The papers read by Roy are available in the Bumblebee Report No. 43. It was at this symposium that Roy met Lawrence Lee Rauch (known as Larry) who also had an interest in telemetry. Correspondence between the two can be found within the deposit. In 1946 Roy was appointed Senior Scientific Officer at SRDE and carried out research on speech cryptography. By 1954 he was promoted to Senior Principle Scientific Officer and thereafter until 1957 he was Assistant Director at the Ministry of Supply Headquarters (DLRDA) his main responsibilities in the fields of research and development in airborne radar, navigation aids, maritime devices and air communications. Between 1947 and 1954 Roy was the Principle Scientific Officer in charge of the Electronics Group of Research Division SRDE, handling the following projects amongst others; speech secrecy systems,, pulse code modulation, servo-systems, application of non-linear magnetic devices to digital operations, transmission of high speed telegraph signals to digital. In November 1954 Roy moved to become Assistant Director of Ministry of Supply Headquarters and remained here until September 1957. During this period Roy was involved in airborne radar, navigation aids, maritime devices and air communications. From 1957-1959 Roy was engaged as Superintendent of Research at SRDE in Christchurch, Hampshire. He oversaw the laboratory and personnel working on communications and electronic aids for the War office and Ministry of Supply (later Ministry of Aviation) including masers, semiconductors, digital computing techniques, magnetic phenomena and propagation of radio waves. After this period of employment Roy joined the Central Electricity Research Laboratories (CERL) Leatherhead, from 1959-1962. He was Deputy Director and was responsible for the running of the laboratories during a period of expansion where he saw staff increase from 250 to over 600. His experience in telemetry, digital optical encoding, servo control and his knowledge in chemistry, physics, electronic and mechanical engineering were invaluable in this position. Following this from 1962 to 1963 Roy worked as Technical Director at R.B Pullen & Co Ltd, Brentford, Middlesex. The company was involved with the development of sonar equipment for the Royal Navy. Here Roy was in control of the Research and Development Division. In 1965 Roy moved to the Royal Armament Research Establishment as their Chief Scientific Officer. This work was secret but he had authority over the research, delegation and staff control. Roy retired in May 1979 but continued to serve on committees within his professional institutions well into retirement. Roy invented the Barker code, named for him, which is a known method for synchronising digital communication systems. This was described in a paper entitled "Group Synchronisation of Binary Digital Systems". The method was initially researched at SRDE just after World War II, and was intended for use in radar, rocket telemetry and digital speech. Roy was an active member of the IEE, later the IET. He had been a corporate member since 1945 and from 1959-1962 62 became involved with the work of various committees of the Power Division and of the Control & Automation Division. He was chairman of the latter for the session 1971-1972. He became a member of the Council as well as serving on the Membership Committee. In 1953 Roy was awarded the Heaviside Premium for a mathematical paper. Roy had also been elected to the Fellowship of the Institute of Physics and of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. He served for a time on the Automatic Control committee of the latter. In 1963 he helped to organise the First International Telemetering Conference to be held in London, hosted by the IEE on 23-27 September. Roy died on 7 October 2015, one of the oldest members of the IET.

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