Ramsey Faragher, PhD
Dr Ramsey Faragher is the CEO and CTO at Focal Point Positioning. He is a world-leading expert in GNSS-denied positioning and is pioneering the development of game-changing new technologies to set new standards in indoor positioning and autonomous positioning systems. He holds a first class degree in Physics and a PhD in opportunistic radio positioning, both from the University of Cambridge.
Ramsey is also a Fellow of the Royal Institute of Navigation, and a Bye Fellow of Queens’ College, Cambridge. Previously he was a Senior Research Associate at the University of Cambridge, where he developed the first online SLAM-based indoor positioning system for smartphones. Prior to this he was a Principal Scientist at the BAE Systems Advanced Technology Centre where he developed the award-winning and patented NAVSOP opportunistic positioning suite and other GNSS-denied tracking technologies.
Focal Point Positioning was formed in 2015 by Dr Ramsey Faragher in order to solve a very important problem - high integrity, ubiquitous positioning, for everyone.
Focal Point consists of a team of domain experts with over 25 years of combined knowledge in the world of Positioning, Navigation and Timing. The team originally worked together in the Defence industry, improving the navigation and positioning systems of a range of platforms from submarines to Martian rovers. Having worked on every possible man-portable positioning system in use today, the team are fully aware of the performance limitations of everything currently in use. So the development of a new generation of positioning technologies began.
Meet the Team
Darren Buckle, MBA
Darren Buckle is the General Manager at Focal Point Positioning. He holds an engineering degree from Loughborough University and an MBA in Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Design from Imperial College London.
Previously Darren was Business Development Manager at BAE Systems Advanced Technology Centre, leading the global marketing, operations, private venture and business winning activities for a FTSE100 research centre.
Nicolas Couronneau, PhD
Dr Nicolas Couronneau holds a 1st class degree in Mathematics and Physics, a degree in electrical engineering from Supélec (France), and a PhD in Physics from the University of Cambridge. His PhD research was on the detection and tracking of GPS signals in difficult signal environments.
Previously he worked at the BAE Systems Advanced Technology Centre where he developed a range of technologies for autonomous vehicles in the fields of navigation, sensor fusion and machine learning. Before joining Focal Point Positioning, Dr Couronneau was a Senior Algorithms Engineer with NVIDIA, where he led the development of signal processing algorithms for cellular communications.
Meet the Board
Oliver Chick, PhD
Oliver Chick is the Principal Software Engineer at Focal Point Positioning. He was awarded a distinction and university prize for his undergraduate computer science degree from the University of Cambridge. He continued at Cambridge to read a PhD, also in computer science, producing award-winning research by creating new techniques to comprehend the performance of contemporary software. Prior to joining Focal Point Positioning, Oliver worked as a software engineer at Citrix and Google. Currently Oliver is also a teaching associate at Queens' College, Cambridge.
Ramsey Faragher
Eileen Burbidge
Co-Founder of Passion Capital
Peter Duffett-Smith
Founder of Cambridge Positioning Systems (acquired by CSR)
Robert Sansom
Co-Founder of Cambridge Angels & active angel investor
Advisors
Alex Trewby - Co -Founder of Divide (acquired by Google)
David Cleevely - CBE, FREng - Co-Founder of Cambridge Angels
Phil O'Donovan - Co -Founder of CSR (acquired by Qualcomm)
John Yeomans - Chairman of the Cambridge Angels and Director at First Capital
Ross Anderson - FRS, FREng - Professor of Security Engineering at the Computer Laboratory, Cambridge
Pilgrim Beart - FIET - Founder of AlertMe (acquired by British Gas) and 1248
Mark Crockett, PhD
Dr Mark Crockett holds a first class degree in Physics and a PhD in Astrophysics, both from Queen’s University Belfast. He is also a Chartered Physicist and a Member of the Institute of Physics. Mark has previously worked as a research scientist at the University of Oxford, and more recently at BAE Systems Advanced Technology Centre, where he collaborated with Dr Faragher on the development of the NAVSOP opportunistic positioning system. Immediately prior to joining Focal Point Positioning, Mark was a Research Scientist at BAE Systems Applied Intelligence Labs, involved in the development of new technologies spanning the navigation, positioning and security domains.
Henry Martin, PhD
Henry Martin is a Senior Software Engineer at Focal Point Positioning. He holds a Master of Mathematics (MMath) degree from the University of Oxford (Trinity College), an MSc in Advanced Mechanical Engineering from Cranfield University and a PhD from University College London. His PhD research focused on accurate low-cost inertial navigation covering the stability-limits of current integration techniques; calibration techniques which require no specialised equipment; and combining arrays of inertial sensors to provide high quality signals despite changing environmental conditions.