Staff profile

Alternative email address

alanpurvis@btinternet.com

I have a background in Signal Processing for Engineering. My early training at the Cavendish Laboratory was in Radio Astronomy, Aperture Synthesis and Interferometry. The search to link radio objects to optical galaxies led me to be part of the first teams buidling CCD cameras and the image processing technologies then enabled. Interests which followed include the correction of atmospheric seeing using liquid crystal phase modulating devices, the synthesis of optical elements and the use of fast processor technologies to perform high speed real time calculations. This work has involved considerable interaction with Industry. Working with the RDA One North East significant Technology Transfer Projects were initiated called ReCET, NeMEC and CENS deploying European funds to assist SMEs take advantage of University Research and generate more economic impact. These projects evolved into a National Faraday Centre and engaged high profile businesses as partners through follow on EPSRC awards such as Agilent, Sharp and Intel. With this substantial corporate experience now shared with the KTNs opportunities to exploit core EPSRC funded research in the manufacturing sector where there is considerable interest in novel techniques to enable electronic products to repair (heal) themselves. we are very excited at the prospect of extending this know how on self -fix strategies to encompass electro-mechanical goods with current Industrial sponsors. 

• digital signal processing
• optics and image processing

• 2000: Professor in Engineering (Electronic Systems) having held many 4x 6 month sabbatical posts at leading International Universities, Stanford, Technion, Cambridge, EPFL.: Fulbright Senior Scholar, Leland Stanford Junior University, CA.Royal Society Visiting Professor, Technion.Visiting Professor at the Ecole Polytechnic Federal Lausanne.Founding Research Director of the EPPIC Faraday (now KTN) partnership for Electronics and Photonics.Director of 3 University Spin out companies.

Chapter in book

• McWilliam, R., Schiefer, P., & Purvis, A. (2015). Building Dependable Electronic Systems for Autonomous Maintenance. In L. Redding, & R. Roy (Eds.), Through-life Engineering Services (375-394). Springer International Publishing
• Jones, D. H., McWilliam, R., & Purvis, A. (2011). Design of Self-Assembling, Self-Repairing 3D Irregular Cellular Automata. In A. Salcido (Ed.), Cellular Automata - Innovative Modelling for Science and Engineering (373-394). InTech
• Jones, D., McWilliam, R., & Purvis, A. (2010). Design of a self-assembling, repairing and reconfiguring Arithmetic Logic Unit. In A. Lazinica (Ed.), New Advanced Technologies (161-176). Intech Education and Publishing

Conference Paper

• Wooder, D., Purvis, A., & McWilliam, R. (2017, December). Using big-data and surface fitting to improve aircraft safety through the study of relationships and anomalies. Presented at TESCONF-2016, Cranfield
• McWilliam, R., Schiefer, P., & Purvis, A. (2016, December). A Combined Fault Detection and Discrimination Strategy for Resource-Sensitive Platforms. Presented at DATE16, Dresden, Germany
• McWilliam, R., Khan, S., & Purvis, A. (2016, December). Modelling the Positional and Orientation Sensitivity of Proximity Sensors. Presented at 2016 UKSim-AMSS 18th International Conference on Computer Modelling and Simulation (UKSim), Cambridge
• Purvis, A., Toriz-Garcia, H., Cowling, J., Williams, G., Seed, N., McWilliam, R., Soulard, F., & Ivey, P. (2014, July). Holographic Lithography. Presented at Imaging and Applied Optics 2014., Seattle, Washington, United States
• McWilliam, R., & Purvis, A. (2013, December). Strategies for self-repairing electronic systems. Presented at 2nd EPSRC Manufacturing the Future Conference, Cranfield University
• McWilliam, R., Purvis, A., Jones, D., Schiefer, P., Frei, R., Tiwari, A., & Zhu, M. (2012, December). Self-repairing Electronic Logic Units Based on Convergent Cellular Automata. Presented at 1st International Conference on Through-life Engineering Services, Shrivenham, England
• McWilliam, R. (2012, December). Self-repairing electronic systems. Presented at IeMRC Research to Industry (R2i) Electronics Conference: connecting research to industry, Loughborough, England
• McWilliam, R., Frei, R., Schiefer, P., Purvis, A., Tiwari, A., & Zhu, M. (2012, December). Self-repair technologies for maintenance-free mechanical and electronic components and subsystems. Presented at 1st EPSRC Conference on Manufacturing the Future, Loughborough, England
• Soulard, F., McWilliam, R., Cowling, J., Purvis, A., Williams, G., Seed, N., Toriz-Garcia, J., & Ivey, P. (2011, December). Holographic recording of vertical surfaces. Presented at Digital Holography and Three-Dimensional Imaging (DH), Tokyo, Japan
• McWilliam, R., & Purvis, A. (2011, December). Orientation and Field Dampening: Key Physical Factors for Harsh-Environment Passive RFID. Presented at RFID Europe 2011, Cambridge, UK
• Soulard, F., McWilliam, R., Williams, G., Toriz-Garcia, J., Purvis, A., & Seed, N. (2011, December). Fabricating non-planar antenna structures by a novel 3-D holographic photolithography method. Presented at Second UK URSI Festival of Radio Science, University of Leicester, UK
• Thurman, A., Purvis, A., & Vitanov, V. (2010, September). Search and Rescue as a Weighted Cleaning Problem, using Diffusion. Presented at 8th International Conference on Manufacturing Research, Durham, England
• Becci, G., Vitanov, V., & Purvis, A. (2010, September). Control Design for Reliable Operation of a Hybrid Pipeline Robot. Presented at 8th International Conference on Manufacturing Research, Durham, England
• Zhou, X., Vitanov, V., & Purvis, A. (2010, September). Point Cloud Techniques in Reverse Engineering. Presented at 8th International Conference on Manufacturing Research, Durham, England
• Laskin, A., Williams, G., McWilliam, R., & Laskin, V. (2010, August). Applying refractive beam shapers to improve other beam shaping techniques. Presented at Laser Beam Shaping XI, San Diego, California, USA
• Williams, G., Toriz-Garcia, J., McWilliam, R., Seed, L., Purvis, A., & Ivey, P. (2010, March). Holographic Photolithography for 3D Integration. Presented at Design, Automation & Test in Europe (DATE) 2010, Dresden, Germany
• McWilliam, R., Purvis, A., Williams, G. L., Toritz-Garcia, J., Seed, L. N., & Ivey, P. A. (2009, April). High fidelity microlithography patterning using computer generated holograms. Presented at Digital holography and three-dimensional Imaging (DH), Vancouver
• Paterson, C., Curry, R., & Purvis, A. (2009, March). Action Potential Detection Algorithms for Implantable Electronics. Presented at BioNanoTechnologies Meeting, Durham, England
• Curry, R., Pera, I., Kataky, R., & Cameran, N. (2009, March). The Sodium Camera: A Direct Spatiotemporal Imaging Device for Ionic Transfer in Biological Systems. Presented at BioNanoTechnologies Meeting, Durham, UK
• Jones, D., Purvis, A., & McWilliam, R. (2009, March). Model and Application of the Community Effect. Presented at UK Synthetic Biology, Systems Biology and Bioinformatics 2009, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, England
• Jones, D., McWilliam, R., & Purvis, A. (2009, March). Mimicking Morphogenesis for Robust Behaviour of Cellular Architectures. Presented at BioNanoTechnologies Meeting, Durham, UK
• Paterson, C., Curry, R., Purvis, A., & Johnson, S. (2008, November). Detection of Action Potentials in the presence of noise using phase-space techniques. Presented at International Conference on Biosciences and Bioengineering, Venice, Italy
• Jones, D., McWilliam, R., & Purvis, A. (2008, October). Mimicking morphogenesis for robust behaviour of cellular architectures. Presented at International Conference on Biosciences and Bioengineering 2008, Venice, Italy
• Paterson, C., Curry, R., Purvis, A., & Johnson, S. (2008, September). On Action Potential detection algorithms. Presented at North East Medical Sciences Postgraduate Research Conference, Newcastle, England
• McWilliam, R., Purvis, A., Richard, C., Williams, G., Seed, L., Ivey, P., & Toriz-Garcia, J. (2008, August). 3D maskless holographic photolithography using spatial light modulators. Presented at 2nd International Photonics Cluster Summer School, Adlershof, Berlin
• Williams, G. L., McWilliam, R., Toriz-Garcia, J., Curry, R., Maiden, A., Seed, L. N., Purvis, A., & Ivey, P. A. (2008, March). A photolithographic process for grossly non-planar substrates. Presented at Advanced Lithography, San Jose, CA, USA
• Pera, I., Curry, R., Paterson, C., Cameron, N., Purvis, A., & Kataky, R. (2008, December). signaling. Presented at 59th Annual Meeting of the International Society of Electrochemistry, Lisbon
• Devlin, I., & Purvis, A. (2007, January). Assessing the Security of Key Length. Presented at SASC 2007, Ruhr University, Bochum, Germany
• McWilliam, R., Purvis, A., Johnson, S., Maiden, A., Williams, G., Seed, L., & Ivey, P. (2006, October). Non-Planar Photolithography Using Digital Holograms. Presented at Frontiers in Optics 2006 : Laser Science XXII, Rochester, New York
• Ivey, P., McWilliam, R., Maiden, A., Williams, G., Purvis, A., & Seed, N. (2023, May). Photolithography on Three Dimensional Substrates. Presented at 56th Electronic Components and Technology Conference (ECTC 2006), San Diego, California
• Devlin, I., & Purvis, A. (2006, April). A Fundamental Evaluation of 80 bit Keys Employed by Hardware Oriented Stream Ciphers. Presented at SHARCS'06, Cologne
• Williams, G., McWilliam, R., Maiden, A., Purvis, A., Ivey, P., & Seed, N. (2005, June). Photolithography on grossly non-planar substrates. Presented at Proceedings of 7th IEEE CPMT Conference on High Density Microsystem Design, Packaging and Failure Analysis., Shanghai, China
• Robinson, C., & Purvis, A. (2003, September). Demodulation of Bluetooth GFSK Signals under Carrier Frequency Error Conditions. Presented at Proceedings of the IEE Colloquium on DSP Enabled Radio, Livingston, Scotland
• Robinson, C., & Purvis, A. (2003, June). Characterisation of Bluetooth Carrier Frequency Errors. Presented at Proceedings of the 9th IEEE International Mixed Signal Testing Workshop (IMSTW’03), Seville, Spain
• Maiden, A., Purvis, A., & Kinghorn, M. (2003, March). The Development of a Digital Switched Mode Power Supply Controller and Controller Design Tool. Presented at Proc International Signal Processing Conference, Dallas, Texas
• Robinson, C., & Purvis, A. (2002, June). A VXIBus Based Bluetooth Radio Test Set For IC Validation and Debug. Presented at Proceedings of the 8th IEEE International Mixed Signal Testing Workshop (IMSTW’02), Montreux, Switzerland
• McWilliam, R., & Purvis, A. (2002, March). Mains Appliance Identification for Electrical Safety Test System. Presented at Proc. 6th International Symposium on Power-Line Communications and its Applications., Athens, Greece

Journal Article

• Punzo, G., Tewari, A., Butans, E., Vasile, M., Purvis, A., Mayfield, M., & Varga, L. (2020). Engineering Resilient Complex Systems: The Necessary Shift Toward Complexity Science. IEEE Systems Journal, 14(3), 3865-3874. https://doi.org/10.1109/jsyst.2019.2958829
• Naghshbandi, S. N., Varga, L., Purvis, A., Mcwilliam, R., Minisci, E., Vasile, M., Troffaes, M., Sedighi, T., Guo, W., Manley, E., & Jones, D. H. (2020). A review of methods to study resilience of complex engineering and engineered systems. IEEE Access, 8(1), 87775-87799. https://doi.org/10.1109/access.2020.2992239
• McWilliam, R., Schiefer, P., & Purvis, A. (2017). Creating self-configuring logic with built-in resilience to multiple-upset events. Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part B: Journal of Engineering Manufacture, 231(13), 2279-2290. https://doi.org/10.1177/0954405415611607
• McWilliam, R., Purvis, A., & Khan, S. (2016). Modelling the Positional and Orientation Sensitivity of Inductively Coupled Sensors for Industrial IoT Applications. International journal of simulation: systems, science & technology, 17(35), Article 23.1
• McWilliam, R., Williams, G., Cowling, J., Seed, L., & Purvis, A. (2016). High contrast pattern reconstructions using a phase-seeded point CGH method. Applied Optics, 55(7), 1701-1710. https://doi.org/10.1364/ao.55.001701
• McWilliam, R., Schiefer, P., & Purvis, A. (2015). Experimental validation of a resilient electronic logic design with autonomous fault discrimination/masking. Procedia CIRP, 38, 265-270. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procir.2015.08.027
• Purvis, A., Morris, B., & McWilliam, R. (2015). FlightGear as a Tool for Real Time Fault-injection, Detection and Self-repair. Procedia CIRP, 38, 283-288. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procir.2015.08.040
• Carney, T., McWilliam, R., & Purvis, A. (2015). Modelling Electronic Circuit Failures using a Xilinx FPGA System. Procedia CIRP, 38, 277-282. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procir.2015.08.039
• Cavalcante, T. C., McWilliam, R., & Purvis, A. (2014). The Design of Reliable Circuits Using Logic Redundancy. Procedia CIRP, 22, 138-141. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procir.2014.07.017
• Schiefer, P., McWilliam, R., & Purvis, A. (2014). Fault Tolerant Quadded Logic Cell Structure with Built-in Adaptive Time Redundancy. Procedia CIRP, 22, 127-131. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procir.2014.07.115
• Schiefer, P., McWilliam, R., & Purvis, A. (2014). Self-healing Fuel Pump Controller Mapped into Memory Based Finite State Machine. Procedia CIRP, 22, 132-137. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procir.2014.07.151
• Frei, R., Mcwilliam, R., Derrick, B., Purvis, A., Tiwari, A., & Di Marzo Serugendo, G. (2013). Self-healing and self-repairing technologies. International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, 69(5-8), 1033-1061. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-013-5070-2
• Schiefer, P., McWilliam, R., & Purvis, A. (2013). Creating a Self-configuring Finite State Machine out of Memory Look-up Tables. Procedia CIRP, 11, 363-366. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procir.2013.07.030
• McWilliam, R., Schiefer, P., & Purvis, A. (2013). Demonstration of a Self-recovering ALU Using a Convergent Cellular Automata. Procedia CIRP, 11, 373-378. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procir.2013.07.026
• Bell, C., McWilliam, R., Purvis, A., & Tiwari, A. (2013). Concepts of self-repairing systems. Measurement and Control, 46(6), 176-179. https://doi.org/10.1177/0020294013492285
• Toriz-Garcia, J., Cowling, J., Williams, G., Bai, Q., Seed, N., Tennant, A., McWilliam, R., Purvis, A., Soulard, F., & Ivey, P. (2013). Fabrication of a 3D electrically small antenna using holographic photolithography. Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering, 23(5), Article 055010. https://doi.org/10.1088/0960-1317/23/5/055010
• Toriz-Garcia, J., Williams, G., McWilliam, R., Seed, N., Purvis, A., Soulard, F., Cowling, J., & Ivey, P. (2011). Vertical tracks on the sidewall of a silicon die using 3D holographic photolithography. Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering, 21(8), Article 085034. https://doi.org/10.1088/0960-1317/21/8/085034
• Cowling, J., Williams, G., Purvis, A., McWilliam, R., Toriz-Garcia, J., Seed, N., Soulard, F., & Ivey, P. (2011). Three-dimensional holographic lithography by an iterative algorithm. Optics Letters, 36(13), 2495-2497. https://doi.org/10.1364/ol.36.002495
• Jones, D., McWilliam, R., & Purvis, A. (2011). Convergence and feedback: a framework for cellular automata design. Journal of Cellular Automata, 6(4-5), 399-416
• Toriz-Garcia, J. J., Williams, G. L., McWilliam, R., Curry, R., Seed, N., Purvis, A., & Ivey, P. A. (2010). Controlled-width track in through silicon via using 3D holographic photolithography with modified electrodepositable photoresist. Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering, 20(1), Article 015012. https://doi.org/10.1088/0960-1317/20/1/015012
• Jones, D., McWilliam, R., & Purvis, A. (2008). Designing convergent cellular automata. BioSystems, 96(1), 80-85. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biosystems.2008.12.001
• Purvis, A., McWilliam, R., Johnson, S., Seed, N., Williams, G., Maiden, A., & Ivey, P. (2007). Photolithographic Patterning of Bi-Helical Tracks onto Conical Substrates. Journal of Micro/Nanopatterning, Materials, and Metrology, 6(4), https://doi.org/10.1117/1.2824377
• McWilliam, R., & Purvis, A. (2006). Potential Uses of Embedded RFID in Appliance Identification. International appliance manufacturing, 10, 100-107
• Maiden, A., McWilliam, R., Purvis, A., Johnson, S., Williams, G., Seed, N., & Ivey, P. (2005). Nonplanar photolithography with computer-generated holograms. Optics Letters, 30(11), 1300-1302. https://doi.org/10.1364/ol.30.001300
• Williams, G., Seed, N., Purvis, A., Maiden, A., McWilliam, R., Ivey, P., & Johnson, S. (2005). Non-Planar Interconnect. Circuit World, 31(2), 10-14. https://doi.org/10.1108/03056120510571798
• Purvis, A., Birch, P., Gourlay, J., & Love, G. (1998). Real-time optical aberration correction with a ferroelectric liquid-crystal spatial light modulator. Macromolecular Symposia, 37(11), 2164-2169
• Phillips, D., Purvis, A., & Johnson, S. (1997). On an efficient VLSI architecture for the multirate additive synthesis of musical tones
• Purvis, A., & Lo, K. (1997). A new approach for estimating spectra from randomly sampled sequences
• Purvis, A., Gourlay, J., Love, G., & Birch, P. (1997). A real-time close loop liquid crystal adaptive optics system: first results. Optics Communications, 137, 17-21. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0030-4018%2896%2900756-0

Patent

• Purvis, A., McWilliam, R., Seed, N., Williams, G., Ivey, P., Maiden, A., & Johnson, S. Holographic Lithography. WO2006021818
• Curry, R., Pera, I., Purvis, A., Kataky, R., & Cameron, N. Apparatus for Determining Concentration of Chemical Species at Multiple Positions in Test Region
• Cowling, J., Purvis, A., McWilliam, R., Soulard, F., Williams, G., Seed, N., & Toriz-Garcia, J. (2011). Improvements In Or Relating To Holography
• Purvis, A., McWilliam, R., Maiden, A., Johnson, S., Ivey, P., Williams, G., & Seed, N. L. (2009). Holographic lithography using geometrical shapes
• Jones, D., Purvis, A., & McWilliam, R. (2009). Self-repairing Electronic Data System
• Purvis, A., McWilliam, R., Curry, R., Andrew, M., Williams, G., Seed, L., …Ivey, P. (2009). Sub-Micron 3d Holographic Lithography