Tips & News - April 2014

communications

communications

Small Cell site antenna brackets Jonathan Adams, Product Development Engineer, sits down with Tips & News writers to explain how he is helping HPS grow the communications market

4 Tell me a little bit about your current role at Hubbell Power Systems.

1

Tell me a little bit about the testing you did _ to verify the brackets performance.

innovative

The brackets were tested in multiple orientations to best simulate field conditions such as wind and ice loading.

I’m a product development engineer, and I was brought on specifically to develop hardware for the communications market. Currently, I’m working on application-specific projects for AT&T and Verizon to develop products such as the small cell antenna brackets and the LCPE Swingarm. Hubbell is entering the wireless market using the small cell site antenna brackets that you are developing for AT&T. As the lead engineer on this project, how do you decide what features to incorporate in the bracket designs? By working closely with the customer and fully understanding their expectations and functional requirements, key design features really begin to take shape. The tricky part is taking these key features and customer requests and turning them into a cost effective, manufacturable, and reliable product. The customer (AT&T) was the main resource for defining the functional requirements of the brackets. However, the engineering team, test lab, and manufacturing team in Centralia all put forth maximum effort to meet a critical development timeline. 3 2 What resources did you use when youwere working on this project?

5

What were the greatest technical challenges you faced working on this project and what did you do to overcome them?

Q& Awith Jonathanadams

engineering

The greatest challenge was acquiring all necessary information to complete a design in a very short time frame. This was over- come by weekly communication with the customer and regular updates on the bracket designs.

What advice do you have for interacting with customers and industry experts for collecting technical information you need for developing a new product? Know who ALL of the influential and driving people are for the project. There may be multiple levels of interaction required to get a full understanding of the scope of a project. Understand- ing the obstacles each key person faces helps overcome these obstacles through your design. For example, we worked with the standards group to understand structural requirements, the construction group to understand space requirements, as well as the radio design engineers to understand the equipment mounting requirements– such as layout and orientation. Each group was involved regularly to help drive the bracket concepts to a final design. 6

I became an engineer because

7

What inspired you to become an engineer?

of my overwhelming desire

My overwhelming desire to know how everything works and the sense of accomplishment I get from solving a problem.

to know how everything works

8

and the sense of accomplishment

What do you enjoy doing when you’re not working?

I get from solving a problem.

I have too many hobbies! However, riding motorcycles and flying airplanes are, by far, my two favorite things to do in my spare time.

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