Professional Expertise

Robert Willmott is the Principle Consultant of AMHS Resources. He has previously worked for Logica UK, Danet GmbH (Darmstadt Germany), The Gessellshaft Fuer Mathematik und Datenverarbeitung (GMD) MbH (Darmstadt Germany), Standard Elektrik Lorenz (Stuttgart) and the UK Post Office telecomunications research laboratories.

Robert has been an Independent Consultant for the last 20 years, during which time he has completed the following assignments:

Recent Air Traffic Control Activities

• Was the author of the European AMHS Profile, which specifies the initial interconnectivity between ANSPs within the European Region, using TCP/IP as a replacement for the ATN internet. This is now incorporated into the EUR-AMHS Manual issued by the ICAO AFSG (work for EUROCONTROL);
• Has re-drafted the ICAO Document 9705 V3 Subvolume 7 (ATN Directory Protocols and Schema). This will now be re-published by ICAO possibly in ICAO Doc. 9880 (work for EUROCONTROL);
• Made many contributions on the used of the LDAP and Web-based directory access protocols;
• He was a member of the CEC funded SPACE Project (Study and Planning for AMHS in Europe), (work for EUROCONTROL);
• Completed a study of how AMHS could be used to replace the AFTN for the UK’s National Air Traffic Control Services (work for UK NATS);
• He made many contributions to ICAO Document 9705 SV 3 – AMHS (now released as ICAO 9880), including contributions on the use of File Transfer body parts, top-level naming structure (use of the XX country code) and Functional Groups (work for EUROCONTROL);
• Developed the test cases for the AMHS<>AFTN Gateway interoperability tests for the CEC funded 'Access' Project which are now used as a basis for AMHS and AFTN testers.
• Developed and presents Training courses on AMHS, ATC data Communications Networks and the ATN Upper and Application Layer structures.

Other Projects

• He was involved in the development of security techniques used for Securing Electronic Messaging (for the UK’s DERA and the European Electronic Messaging Association), and applying Digital Signatures in the context of the EU’s Digital Signature Directive (work for for CEN/Cenelec);
• He was actively involved in the development of Open Systems Interconnection Standards for Electronic Messaging (MHS and X.400) and the Electronic Directory (X.500), working closely within the standards writing committees of the International Standards Organisation, the British Standards Institute, CCITT/ITU-T, CEN/ECNELEC, the European Workshop on Open Systems;
• Developed standards profiles for MHS use of the Directory and EDI use of the Directory - Developed procurement Profiles for the UK’s CCTA (GOSIP) and the CEC (EPHOS);
• He completed many other projects and studies in the areas of Electronic Messaging and Directories, including Hybrid Mail (Electronic mail output to paper);
• For some time he served as a product development consultant (Logica), and was also involved in Analogue/Digital voice transmission.

Early Career

In his early career he trained as an electronics engineer, worked on electromechanical and electronic stored program telephone switching systems (TXE4), and worked as an analyst programmer on real-time process control systems.

Robert holds an Honours degree in Computer Science, is a member of the British Computer Society (MBCS), is a Chartered IT Professional (CITP) and is a Chartered Engineer (C. Eng).

Robert also works with a number of other Independent Consultants, including Chris Makemson, Jon Stranger, John Ross, Tony Whyman. These colleagues provide complementary expertise.