Instrument Development and Integration Engineer

Do you have experience working on engineering or instrument systems projects? Are you keen to develop your skills and experience in a collaborative and supportive environment? Would you like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to develop unique scientific systems for an internationally leading Airborne Laboratory? If so, we want to hear from you!

The FAAM Airborne Laboratory (FAAM) is a world-class research facility dedicated to the advancement of atmospheric science. FAAM operates a specially adapted BAe[1]146 4-engine research aircraft managed by a unique team of scientists, engineers, flight technicians and project managers providing a complete package of support for the scientific community. The capabilities are extensively reliant on state-of-the-art scientific instrumentation, often uniquely customised for use on the aircraft, which is deployed throughout the world. FAAM is supported by the National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS) and funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and is an environmental research infrastructure of national and international importance.

The exciting FAAM Mid-Life Upgrade (MLU) project aims to deliver a range of upgrades and enhancements to the scientific capabilities of the aircraft, its measurement capabilities and its research impact, extending its useful life by at least 20 years.

As an Instrument Development and Integration Engineer, you will develop a new instrument, which will measure the concentration and sizes of airborne aerosol particles, along with the data logging and display software for this instrument. The new instrument will form a replacement for an existing, but ageing instrument – a Passive Cavity Aerosol Spectrometer Probe – and will utilise similar technology, with more up[1]to-date components. The instrument will shine a laser onto individual aerosol particles and collect the scattered light in order to count them and determine their sizes. The intention is to produce a best-in-class instrument for research work. The design will be released under an open-source licence and will be based, as much as possible, upon off-the-shelf components. This is to encourage other research groups to replicate the instrument and build a community of expertise.

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