Experience

Analog Front-End

After finishing international baccalaureate, I have spent my time doing many different things. I have worked in health care services, and in the Norwegian armed forces as communications specialist, company administration, and in brigade HQ. Most of my time have been spent learning more about electronics, physics, mathematics, and informatics. Most of my knowledge comes from working in Velociter AS, higher education, and by doing my own projects.

I have a master's degree and bachelor's from the University of Oslo, Norway, where my master's thesis was about combining radar positioning and radio communication into one system. My education is a combination of physics, informatics, and electronics with a focus on sensors and microelectronics.

Besides my studies I have been working on my own projects and in Velociter AS. During my time in Velociter I have been working on AI and smart sensors where I have been focusing on the hardware, as well as many other projects.

I also spent many years in the student organization Portal Space, and had the pleasure of making the electronics department as well as much of the organizational structure. From Portal Space I have experience in managing department (plans, timelines, budgeting, etc), developing organizations, and system engineering. In addition I worked on many different electronics and software projects.

While Velociter, uni, and Portal Space have kept me busy, I have always had plenty of other projects besides. Some of these projects can be found in the projects section.

Currently I am structuring my own company, Ralv Holmsen as well as my own projects, but I am also looking for interesting projects with new potential partners.

Questionable testing of bi-liquid rocket engine

Touch based interface

Testing of bi-liquid rocket engine

Some of my many projects

Local Oscillator

DAC Testing

RF and Analog

RF Front-End with LNA, PA, and 4-bit phase shifter

For Radio Frequency (RF) and analog design I have spent a lot of time developing sensors, data acquisition boards, and radio transceivers and front-ends. Based on my experience with projects, university, and previous work I feel comfortable working all the way up to a few giga Hertz.

Insight and experience from studying and working with RF and analog includes communication, radars, circuit design and layout, signal processing and conditioning, and testing and verification. My experience is backed up with theoretical knowledge of electromagnetism, transfer functions, transforms, and circuit theory. In addition I have experience with both passive and active analog designs on transistor and opamp level.

Patch antennas

Wilkinson Splitter

FPGA, MCU, and Embedded

Bipolar stepper driver

Alarm system

Data acquisition and control board

For the most part my experience in embedded systems is in industrial, automation, space, and commercial markets, and for many different applications such as control and data acquisition, power and motor control, and pre-processing. I am always looking to expand on my knowledge.

I have experience working with different microcontrollers, but Microchip/Atmel AVR and ATSAM (ARM) microcontrollers are my go-to choices. I also have experience using RISC-V soft-cores in FPGAs which is especially interesting when combined with custom instructions and peripherals. I also have experience using DSPs such as the dsPIC33 series. I am comfortable working with microcontrollers on register level using C/C++, but I can also use some development frameworks such as MPLAB Harmony if the time to market is especially crucial. For digital design and FPGA I have most experience with VHDL, and my go-to vendor is Lattice Semiconductor, but I also have some experience with PolarFire FPGAs.

While most projects can be realized by the humble AVR, some projects require special peripherals, compute, or high speed design. While high-end microcontrollers are perfect for many applications, I have in most of my projects used AVRs or FPGAs. As such I have more experience with these two platforms.

8x SDR transceiver

BLDC driver

Circuit design and Layout

RF SoC development board

I have experience with circuit design, schematics, and printed circuit board layout for both analog and digital circuits. I have experience with high-speed, radio frequency, emissions/interference, signal integrity, and wave propagation/impedance. When it comes to circuit board layout I use Target3001!, but I can adapt to any other tool if required.

Switching regulator

Software and Simulations

When it comes to software, the bulk of my experience is in embedded design, and my preferred language is C/C++. I also have experience using Python for simulations and data acquisition, connectivity, and signal processing.

For simulations I use a variety of tools. For digital design I use ModelSim/Questa, and for circuit design I use LT spice among others. For other custom simulations I use Python.

RF simulation vs measurement

RF simulation of experimental

modulation technique

System design, Testing, and Verification

VNA measurement of an antenna

While it is one thing to design something, it is another to know how to test it, and what qualifies the project as complete. From my years in different projects be it large or small, I have gained thorough experience with this. While some smaller projects essentially don't need requirements for testing and verification, most projects do, especially when they consist of many smaller projects or other people.

To create a system usually means defining many smaller components or projects, and how they interact. Engagements in management in Portal Space as well as Velociter AS has resulted in a broad and varied experience with system design, as well as from other projects. High and low level designs, as well as specifications, testing, test planning, risk analysis, and system verification methods are used.

Custom multi master bus

HLD of SDR

High level design

Other experience

While most of my experience is technical, experience through task and role responsibility regarding project management, organization development, recruitment, education/courses, budgeting, as well as innovation work are important professional qualifications.

Since most of my experience comes from the different projects I have been working with, it is recommended to read more about what I have been doing in my different projects from the Projects page.

RTL Simulation