Profile
Dr David Gibson
Honorary Senior Research Fellow
This page last updated on 19-Jun-2023
Special Offer to CSM Students
Im offering a special deal to CSM students. You can subscribe to the online version of the CREG journal (see samples) for free (normally £4) and you can subscribe to the printed edition – four quarterly issues – for £5 (normally £16). To take up this offer, please contact me. (If your message to my Exeter address bounces, please see the information here). Additionally, for the offer to be valid, you must give an email address at exeter.ac.uk and, for the printed version, you should have a delivery postcode that begins with TR. Offer expires at the end of 2023.
Research
From July 2017 to June 2020, I worked on a three-year research project funded by the European Commission's Research Fund for Coal and Steel (RFCS) to investigate "Information Driven Incident Response" (Project name: INDIRES). The objective was to enable critical information to be gathered during a serious mining incident, without reliance on a mine's fixed power or communication network, to aid personnel rescue and mine safety. My main role was to investigate resilient forms of through-rock radio data communication using novel antenna structures and mesh networks.That project has now been written up.
Because my funding came from the EU I am no longer funded for work at the university. I am now an Honorary Senior Research Fellow but that post is due to terminate on 1 July 2023. I am still working on "outcomes" from the INDIRES project and, hopefully, I will be able to report further on this in due course, but you might have to visit my personal website for that.
I started working at the Camborne School of Mines in January 2016, and was involved in two previous RFCS projects at CSM: M-SMARTGRID (mine power engineering) and STAMS (monitoring of flooded shafts). See the Research tab for further information.
Background
Summary of Career History
- By training, I am a mathematician and electronic engineer. I hold an MA degree from the University of Cambridge.
- My early career was that of an electronic hardware development engineer, familiar with SMEs and manufacturing.
- My PhD thesis, at the University of Leeds, was a study of sub-surface radio communications.
- From 2003 I was a research project manager at the UK’s Mines Rescue Service (MRSL). During this time, MRSL contributed to 19 research projects, most of them funded by the European Commission’s Research Fund for Coal and Steel (RFCS). I contributed to some 14 of these, with a significant contribution to seven.
- From 2016 I have been working on EU-funded RFCS projects at the Camborne School of Mines.
- From July 2020 I have been an Honorary Senior Research Fellow. Apparently, honorary appointments do not confer access to Symplectic Elements so you cannot view my current research there. See my Recent Publications instead.
Research Interests
My research interests are centred around sub-surface radio communications although, for various reasons, through-rock radio is not usually a high priority in the mining world. I am interested in applying the principles to sub-sea work and I have some ideas on non-conventional radio antennas for LF radio. See the Research tab for further information.
I am also involved with BCRA's project to set up a Cave Science Centre at Poole's Cavern in Derbyshire. The facility is being designed to encourage undergraduates to undertake projects relating to cave science, climate and environment. See the External Activities tab for further information.
Other Activities
I am a Trustee of the British Cave Research Association (BCRA; a registered charity) and am currently its secretary. Previous posts in BCRA have included administrator of its research fund, editor of its magazine, Speleology; and the technical editor of the journal of its Cave Radio & Electronics Group. See the External Activities tab for further information.
Publications
The Publications tab includes, in its listing, a selection of the many articles I have written for the CREG Journal. To see a full list of my CREG articles, you can use my CREGJ search engine.