David Walker

Personal profile

Biography

Research Assistant UCL 1979-82
Experimental Officer UCL 1982-88
Director Optical Investments Ltd 1994-2015
Associate Research Fellow UCL 1988-95
Lecturer UCL 1995-97
Reader in Optical Science UCL 1997-2008
Royal Society Industry Fellow UCL 2003-07
Principal Research Associate UCL 2008-09
Professorial Research Associate UCL 2009-15
Visiting Professor Huddersfield 2015-16
Professor of Ultra Precision Surfaces, Huddersfield 2016 - present
Honorary Senior Research Associate UCL 2016 - present

Major achievements:

Development of cryogenic CCD cameras
Developed novel Echelle Spectrograph and commissioned at the 3.9m AAT (Australia); design principles adopted for Utrecht Echelle Spectrograph on 4.2m William Herschel Telescope - Acted as consultant to Utrecht group.
Commercialisation of research in computer controlled polishing
Several Large Telescope design studies; Korean space camera tech. development
Formative research in CNC polishing; Gemini High-Res spectrograph studies
Developed High Res Optical Spectrograph and commissioned at 8m Gemini telescope (Chile)
Successful delivery of new 1.8m mirror and auxiliary optics for Birr Telescope refurbishment.
Bi-directional tech-transfer with Zeeko Ltd
Established National Facility for Ultra Precision Surfaces at OpTIC Centre, N. Wales
Successful technical proposal leading to securing of €5m E-ELT prototype mirror-segment contract
Advanced polishing and metrology research and its exploitation
Establishing new research programme under Huddersfield University

Research Expertise and Interests

Research in manufacture and metrology of precision and ultra-precision surfaces for optics and other precision applications
Research into process-automation and robotics, as applied to iterative rather than deterministic processes; leading towards the ultimate vision of a fully-autonomous manufacturing cell
Research into optical instrumentation techniques in general and astronomical instrumentation in particular

Research Degree Supervision

Click Here to see all postgraduate research opportunities with Professor David Walker

Keywords

Optics and Photonics
Optics
Instrumentation
Applied Optics
Interferometry
Measurement and Metrology
Metrology
Optical Metrology

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Projects 2013 2018

4 Finished

Optimised polishing media - a new approach

Walker, D. & Yu, G.

1/02/17 → 31/10/17

Project: Research › Research Council - AHRC

Novel Mathematical Techniques for Advanced Tool-paths to Transform High-value Optical Fabrication (2)

Walker, D.

1/05/16 → 1/12/16

Project: Research › Research Council - AHRC

Developing an integrated system to enable a robot arm to speak with a Zeeko machine to automate currently manual operations.

Walker, D. & Li, H.

1/09/13 → 31/03/17

Project: Research › Research Council - AHRC

Feasibility of capturing crafts-based knowledge in an AI system to automate precision surface manufacturing

Walker, D., Petrovic, S., Longstaff, A., Pan, W., Parkinson, S., Wilson, K., Yu, G. & Li, H.

1/04/17 → 31/05/18

Project: Research › Research Council - AHRC

Research Output 1986 2019

43 Article
39 Conference contribution
14 Conference article

Advances in Optical Fabrication for Astronomy

Walker, D., Yu, G., Li, H., Myer, B. W., Beaucamp, A. T., Namba, Y. & Wu, L., 11 May 2019, In : Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 485, 2, p. 2071–2082 12 p.

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article

Open Access

Astronomy

astronomy

Fabrication

fabrication

Optical design

Combined processing chain for freeform optics based on atmospheric pressure plasma processing and bonnet polishing

Su, X., Ji, P., Liu, K., Walker, D., Yu, G., Li, H., Li, D. & Wang, B., 24 Jun 2019, In : Optics Express. 27, 13, p. 17979-17992 14 p.

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article

Open Access

polishing

atmospheric pressure

optics

roughness

textures

Fundamental steps toward next-generation intelligent automatic process in a faster and cost-effective chain for processing optical surfaces

Wu, H. Y., Walker, D. & Yu, G., 22 Jul 2019, In : Optics Express. 27, 15, p. 21856-21871 16 p.

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article

Open Access

manufacturing

telescopes

costs

textures

industries

Advanced techniques for robotic polishing of aluminum mirrors

Li, H., Walker, D., Zheng, X., Yu, G., Reynolds, C., Zhang, W. & Li, T., 15 Jun 2018, Optical Fabrication, Testing, and Metrology VI. Schröder, S. & Geyl, R. (eds.). SPIE, 13 p. 106920N. (Proceedings of SPIE; vol. 10692).

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

Open Access

File

Polishing

robotics

Aluminum

polishing

Robotics

A Novel Hyper-Crossing Tool Path Generation Algorithm for Sub-Aperture Polishing

Reynolds, C., Walker, D., Yu, G. & Li, H., 10 Jul 2018, Advances in Optical and Mechanical Technologies for Telescopes and Instrumentation III. SPIE, Vol. 10706. 11 p. 107060F

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

Tool Path Generation

Polishing

Tool Path

polishing

apertures