[529.10] MacRobert

ENGINEERING EXCELLENCE
Britain’s premier prize for engineering
The MacRobert
Award 2003
he Royal Academy of Engineering’s MacRobert Award
for innovation in engineering is unusual in that it can be
awarded to an entry from any area of engineering or
technology. Now in its 34th year, the award is open to
individuals or teams of up to five people from any size of
company or institution that can show that it has made a major
engineering breakthrough that is of benefit to society and has
succeeded in commercially exploiting it.
The aim of the Award is to recognise the innovative
achievements of an individual or team, and to publicise these
to a wider audience. A panel of judges reviews all
submissions and visits the short listed companies that have
been selected as finalists in order to choose the winner. The
judges are drawn from all areas of engineering, each bringing
their own expertise to the task.
Dr Robin Paul CBE FREng, Chairman of the MacRobert
Evaluation Committee says of the Award:
T
The importance of the MacRobert Award is that it brings
recognition to the exciting level of engineering innovation
taking place in the UK today. Successful entrants must
demonstrate commercial success and the four outstanding
2003 finalists will be potent role models for publicising the
astonishing achievements of our engineers.
2003 Winner
Randox Laboratories Ltd
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Randox Laboratories Ltd of Northern
Ireland has developed a fully automated
diagnostic analyser (evidence®) using
protein biochip array technology. The
winning team comprises Dr Peter
Fitzgerald, managing director, John
Lamont, R&D manager, and Ivan
McConnell, divisional R&D manager of
biochip research, manufacture and
instrument design. The Randox vision is
to ‘develop a complete diagnostic
system that will provide more accurate
patient diagnosis and enable selection
of the most appropriate therapeutic
treatment on an individual patient basis’.
While the competition is stiff, the rewards are many. The
winning team receives a gold medal, £50 000 and the
opportunity to mount an exhibition at the Science Museum.
Originally founded by the MacRobert Trust, the Award is
now presented by The Royal Academy of Engineering, a prize
fund having been established with donations from the
MacRobert Trust, The Royal Academy of Engineering and
British industry. Previous winners include:
●
●
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CDT Ltd for light-emitting polymers (2002)
Sensaura Ltd for 3-D positional audio (2001)
Johnson Matthey for the continuously regenerating trap
(2000).
The Academy would like to encourage applications from a
wide range of individuals/teams. Details of how to apply as
well as rules and conditions for application are on The
Academy’s website at www.raeng.co.uk, or contact Dr E.
Horwitz at the Academy for further details.
Innovation
evidence® enables the simultaneous
detection and quantification of multiple
proteins and other compounds
associated with disease states in clinical
samples on a single biochip. This is the
first commercially available protein
biochip and assay system. This system
replaces multiple reaction wells with a
single technology platform, individual
tests with multi-test panels and sample
re-runs with a unique concept of
retrospective reporting.
The biochip (similar to a silicon chip)
consists of a 1 cm2 substrate on which
discrete test regions have been
constructed. Each test region consists
ENGINEERING EXCELLENCE
Secondary enzyme-labelled
antibody which also binds to the
analyte from the patient sample
Commercial applications
2003 Finalists
The technology is applicable to a wide
range of diagnostic parameters,
including thyroid hormones, fertility
hormones, cancer markers, cardiac
markers, allergy testing, infectious
diseases, blood grouping, drugs of
abuse, antibiotic drug residues and
anabolic steroids. At present, more than
3500 tests per hour can be analysed on
drug residues, thyroid, fertility, tumour,
cardiac, allergens and others, whereas
conventional methods can perform only
just over 200 tests in an hour. This
provides speedier processing of tests for
more patients – a great cost saving for
both public and private healthcare
facilities.
This technology can also be used for
drug testing of athletes, clinical trials to
test the safety and side effects of new
drugs and many other applications. The
aim in the future is to have a
personalised preventative medical
system, where the individual’s health can
be monitored to detect any early signs of
disease.
Randox has successfully negotiated
contracts worldwide with private
laboratories and public hospitals to the
value of £25 million over the next three
years. Evidence is already in use in
China, the US, Austria, Greece and
Turkey. Within five years worldwide sales
are predicted to top £300 million.
(in alphabetical order)
Generation of light output
which is quantified to
determine the level of
analyte in patient sample
E
E
Discrete Test
Regions (DTRs)
Y
Capture of analyte
from patient sample
Antibodies covalently
bound to biochip surface
Randox Biochip surface containing
up to 100 DTRs
Schematic Representation of Randox’s multi-analyte biochip array technology
(sandwich assay)
FT Technologies Ltd
FT Technologies Ltd has developed a
small, durable and reliable wind sensor
known as the FT702 Acoustic
Resonance Anemometer. This is a
compact, solid-state instrument with no
moving parts, which measures both
wind speed and direction. The finalist
team comprises Dr Savvas Kapartis,
technical director and inventor of
Acoustic Resonance Technology, Peter
Elgar, managing director for mechanical
design and Robin Strachan who is the
project engineer for its electronic design.
‘FT Technologies is thrilled to be a
finalist for the 2003 MacRobert Award
and particularly as we are a small
company. This confirms that any
company, regardless of size, that
possesses a highly capable, committed,
dynamic and determined engineering
team can produce products that are
world-class and which encompass
engineering excellence’, remarks the
Middlesex-based FT Technologies team.
Innovation
Acoustic resonance airflow sensing is a
new patented method for measuring
wind speed and wind direction; it uses
an acoustic (ultrasonic) wave that is
resonated inside a small purpose built
cavity. There is a variety of conventional
anemometers, the most common of
which is the cup type which has a
vertical axis and uses three cups to
measure wind speed and is also fitted
with a wind vane to detect wind
direction. Other types include
propellers, laser, and hot wire
anemometers.
In the FT702 the ultrasonic signals
are processed by the on-board Vector
Network Analyser. This acoustic
resonance sensing technique, coupled
with state-of-the-art signal processing,
gives the anemometer a wind speed
range of 0.01 m/s to 70 m/s. It can
measure the wisp of air produced by a
falling feather or the destructive winds
involved in a hurricane. It can also
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of different antibodies or reactive species
for each assay. The biochip carrier, a
transport vehicle for biochips, is a
square object with nine separate
reaction wells. A biochip is secured in
the base of each well and this is used as
a reaction chamber for the patient
sample assay.
The biochip assays are based on
standard immunoassay techniques. In
the test panels antibodies are attached
to the biochip surface to which any
analytes in the patient sample bind.
Chemiluminescence (production of light
via a chemical reaction) is used to
determine the level of analyte present in
a sample. The light emission from the
test regions is detected and quantified
using a charge coupled device (CCD)
camera and the image is then
processed using dedicated software
designed by Randox Laboratories.
This fully automated analyser
performs a great number and variety of
diagnostic tests per patient sample
simultaneously, thus requiring fewer
samples than conventional methods. It is
possible to test for up to 25 different
proteins on a single biochip. This gives
much more information from a single
sample than is currently available. This
capacity also reduces the need for
repeat samples from the same patient. It
also allows the possibility of discovering
relationships between different proteins
involved in disease, thus improving the
accuracy of diagnosis.
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ENGINEERING EXCELLENCE
measure the direction of the wind with
an accuracy of ±3°.
As it has no exposed parts, the
FT702 is environmentally shielded and
can operate under extreme weather
conditions; it is compensated against
the effects of temperature, pressure
and humidity.
Commercial applications
Key market areas for this device are in
wind energy; nuclear, chemical and
biological weapons monitoring;
meteorological measurement and
industrial ventilation. In many cases the
requirements are based around
maintaining a safe working environment
for personnel.
Since its inception, the product has
been granted patents in Europe and the
USA and has achieved considerable
international market success with many
companies in the process of replacing
their existing sensors with the FT702.
The basic product has been developed
into different versions to meet the
needs of specific customers.
Oxford Instruments Superconductivity
Oxford Instruments Superconductivity has developed the
‘Discovery’ 900 MHz superconducting magnet. Superconducting
magnets are the power behind NMR (nuclear magnetic
resonance) spectrometers and have created new possibilities for
research in the fields of proteomics and genomics, allowing the
identification of three-dimensional structure of proteins and other
biological macromolecules. The 900 MHz magnet represents the
latest milestone for Oxford Instruments, who have been
manufacturing NMR magnets since 1971, and represents a key
advance in enabling life science and drug discovery applications.
The finalist team includes Martin Townsend, project manager;
senior engineers, Graham Hutton and Marc Simon; and principal
engineers George Farmer and Dr Ziad Melhem.
Innovation
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By increasing the field strength of the NMR magnet up to
900 MHz, larger and more complex molecules can be studied,
their structures and relationships determined, with greater
resolution and sensitivity than has ever been possible. At the
height of a double-decker bus and weighing 8 tonnes, it has a
magnetic field 400 000 times stronger than the Earth’s magnetic
field and can wipe a credit card from five metres. The
superconducting magnet needs to provide a very stable field at
900 MHz that cannot drift more than
10 parts in 10 billion per hour. The
magnet requires around 300 km of
superconducting wire, and special
techniques were developed to create
and fix a wire of this length in place that
could also withstand the stresses
experienced by the magnet in operation
(typically 2000 tonnes of axial load). To
prevent the magnet suddenly losing
superconductivity, which could result in
an energy release equivalent to the
power of 4 kg of TNT, special systems
were put in place to manage the energy
release and to keep the
superconducting material at ultra low
temperatures (–271 K), which required
new developments in cryogenic
technology. To achieve this high level of
performance, Oxford Instruments has
developed and patented several unique
magnet features, including new
technology for superconducting wire
(UltraSN™), coil production
(Sigmabond™), superconductor jointing
techniques (FemtoOhm™) and an
energy management system. These
advances are critical for the
understanding of disease and the
development of pharmaceuticals.
‘The 900 MHz is one of the most
technically challenging magnets ever
developed’ said Martin Townsend,
project manager. ‘It’s wonderful that the
commitment and hard work of our
workforce has been recognised by the
MacRobert Award. The 900 MHz
represents the culmination of years of
research and planning, with innovation
not just in engineering techniques, but
also in business practice and
infrastructure.’
Rolls-Royce
Rolls-Royce in Bristol has developed a
sophisticated propulsion system for the
future US/UK Joint Strike Fighter
programme of aircraft. The Rolls-Royce
LiftSystem™ forms the basis of the
short take-off, vertical landing (STOVL)
capability for the Lockheed Martin F-35
aircraft. The finalist team is made up of
Charles Hughes, former project
director; Peter Price, director of
engineering; Dave Palfreyman, deputy
project manager; Phil Burkholder, chief
engineer; and Tony Hewitt, former chief
designer.
‘We are delighted to be one of the
finalists for such a prestigious award,’
said Peter Price, on behalf of the team.
‘Rolls-Royce has a proud tradition of
innovation and engineering excellence,
and the development of the vertical lift
components for the Joint Strike Fighter
is completely consistent with that
tradition.’
Commercial applications
Oxford Instruments Superconductivity
has already installed the world’s largest
commercial wide-bore NMR magnet at
the Pacific Northwest National
Laboratory in Washington, USA, and a
second 900 MHz system at Yokohama
City University, Japan. Further orders
have been placed worldwide, including
two systems co-funded by the UK
Government and the Wellcome Trust.
Innovation
Unlike the earlier Pegasus engine in
Harrier jets, this system, with
supersonic capability, has the innovative
approach of allowing the main
propulsion system to be optimised for
conventional flight and then be
augmented by the novel LiftFan™,
which is mechanically driven from a
conventional gas turbine, supplying the
forward vertical lift, and a separate
swivelling jet pipe capable of redirecting
the rear thrust from the horizontal to the
vertical. The vertical lift or STOVL
elements for which Rolls-Royce is
responsible comprise the LiftFan™,
3 Bearing Swivel Module (3BSM) and
Roll Posts.
The LiftFan™, a 1250 mm two-stage
counter-rotating fan capable of
generating more than 20 000 lb of
thrust, is driven from a conventional gas
turbine and supplies the forward vertical
lift. The 3BSM is a swivelling jet pipe
capable of redirecting the rear thrust
from the horizontal to the vertical
position. It can rotate through 95° in 2.5
seconds and passes 18 000 lb of
thrust. Aircraft roll control is achieved
using the Roll Posts mounted in the
wings of the aircraft, each of which
provides a further 1950 lb of thrust.
Lateral stability is maintained by Roll
Posts located in each wing. These duct
bypass air from the prime engine.
This unique propulsion system has
been chosen for inclusion in the US/UK
Joint Strike Fighter Programme, a
project that is spearheading the
development of next generation fighter
aircraft and is to dominate the future
combat aircraft market. The Rolls Royce
LiftSystem™ will create over 1000 jobs
in UK industry and is a key enabler in
delivering the Joint Strike Fighter. ■
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