Joe Cordaro
Joe Cordaro
October / November 2011
Volume 9 Number 5
While his home base is the Savannah River National Laboratory, Joe Cordaro is a man who keeps his suitcase nearby and his passport up to date. His travels take him not just from continent to continent but from industry to industry. Cordaro, whose background is in electrical and computer engineering, is recognized across the DOE complex and internationally as an expert in nuclear instrumentation, process control and high speed data acquisition.
He and a colleague developed an automated controlled potential coulometer for the measurement of plutonium, independent of certified reference material. His extensive work in coulometry has taken him from the Savannah River Site in South Carolina to IAEA headquarters in Austria and to the Japanese Atomic Energy Agency.
More recent work builds off his background in providing support to NNSA defense programs, but is also expanding in directions that aren’t necessarily associated with traditional Savannah River missions. Take, for example, the way his nuclear materials-related projects feed into work with other industries, including law enforcement.
“So much of what we do is in hot cells and gloveboxes, and it can be extremely complex and expensive to bring sensors and instruments into those areas. The solution can be wireless, but the showstopper is security,” he said. “The challenge is to solve the security issues, since we’re usually working with classified data.”
Thanks to the support of the National Security Agency, the wireless sensor project he is leading addresses a need that’s particularly applicable to DOE and NNSA work and it led Cordaro and a Savannah River team into additional projects supporting Defense that could have far-reaching applications in the wireless communications field.
Working with law enforcement customers, and with other partners—Boeing, On-Ramp Wireless and others—Cordaro led the technology integration of multiple technologies that can be integrated into a single device providing seamless remote tracking, world-wide, indoors and in locations where global positioning systems will not work.
“The fundamental problem,” Cordaro says, “is the limited reliability of GPS in the environments law enforcement frequently needs to work in.” He and others have integrated a tracking and locating system that can work either with or independently of GPS, can function without cell towers or WiFi, and can operate indoors, in wooded areas, in urban canyons and in other areas where GPS signals are frequently lost.
The system has the potential to improve nationwide capabilities for law enforcement, corrections, special response teams, SWAT teams, other first responders, materials tracking and other customers that are steadily being identified.
He and his colleagues field tested the tracking device in the Alaska wilderness, working with Alaska officials in conditions ranging from a simulated avalanche to a six-floor building to an underground parking garage. The results from these scenarios far surpassed those of existing commercial tracking technologies.
The project was one of only 12 technologies chosen by the government to be displayed at a special technology expo sponsored earlier this year by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to showcase high-impact technologies for interested agencies.
Joe Cordaro’s expertise in wireless communications also led to an agreement between his lab and the United States Council for Automotive Research to develop designs and specifications for a wireless sensor platform that meets NNSA’s needs as well as the automotive industry.
In the field of clean, renewable energy, Cordaro is leading SRNL’s participation in the development of a new large-scale wind energy test facility that will enhance the performance, durability, and reliability of utility-scale wind turbines. The lab’s role in the Clemson University-led project includes the design, configuration and deployment of a high-fidelity custom data acquisition system for the facility. Wind turbine sizes have increased with each new generation of turbines, and have outgrown the capacity of existing U.S. drivetrain testing facilities. The Large Wind Turbine Drivetrain Testing facility will enable the U.S., which leads the world in wind energy capacity, to expand development and testing of large-scale wind turbine drive-train systems domestically.
Cordaro has also become a “fix-it” specialist for legacy electronics systems at the Savannah River Site and throughout the complex. Through the Network of Senior Scientists and Engineers (where Cordaro is a former chair), he’s been heavily involved in efforts to upgrade high resolution mass spectrometers at sites such as Sandia and Pantex. “Working with the NNSE, I’ve had a good opportunity to see the needs of the National Security Enterprise across the board, and it’s helped me really focus and target what we work on.” The NSSE spearheaded an SRNL-led collaboration to upgrade mass spectrometry equipment used in production, surveillance and development activities related to the nation’s nuclear defense. “In a lot of cases we’re talking about equipment that’s really critical, and we’ve gotten the ‘Dear John’ letter from the vendor saying you’re on your own. There’s going to be a lot more work in upgrading electronics in similar legacy mass specs that vendors don’t or can’t support any more.”
Cordaro graduated from the State University of New York in Buffalo, and opted for the milder winters of South Carolina. He has numerous publications and nine inventions, with one patent and two pending, including a pending patent for an electrometer that can accurately measure one femto-amp. Like many of his generation, he found inspiration in the work of NASA. “I grew up building those little electronics experiments from Heathkit, and following NASA, particularly during the development of the shuttle,” he said.
Also, watching his older brother (who also now works at Savannah River Site) rebuilding radios and transmitting Morse code across the world gave him an appreciation for analog design and the field of electrical engineering. Cordaro began as a summer student in 1983 and in 1984 began full-time work in a group that provided staff support for operations throughout the site. “That group morphed into a really good development group,” he said, “and I think we have a really great field group today that can match up with any national laboratory.” And, he says, some of the greatest satisfaction happens when the call arrives from elsewhere in the DOE complex.
“It’s very gratifying when we do work for the other labs,” he said. “To get the calls from people at Sandia, from Los Alamos, from our peers at places like those, is good validation of the work we do. It tells me we’re working on the right things.”
Will Callicott is a writer at the Savannah River National Laboratory.
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