Former Prof. Robert P. Featherstone Dies

Robert P. Featherstone, 93, of Minneapolis, Minn. died in August 2014. He was an electrical engineer who worked at Twin Cities Central Engineering (currently United Technologies, Corp.) at the CERN Lab in Geneva, Switzerland, at FERMILab in Batavia, Ill., and at the University of Minnesota as Physics Professor and Center Engineering Professor.

After retiring from his academic teaching career, he volunteered as a Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Industrial Advisory Board member.

Featherstone served during World War II in the Army Signal Corps, achieved the rank of Captain, and received the Bronze Star.
 

He was preceded in death by his wife Genevieve and son-in-law Warren Gilder. He is survived by three daughters, four grandchildren, and nine great-grandchildren.
 
The funeral was August 21, 2014 and he was laid to rest at Fort Snelling National Cemetery.

Featherstone was responsible for the “ARC Safety Device for High Voltage” patent—“a protective control circuit for a rectifier system which is used in conjunction with a high voltage alternating current supply system,” wrote Featherstone. ”… One of the short comings of a circuit breaker is its relatively long response time before it will function and open an AC input connect the rectifier system….[My invention] protects the system during the interval that it requires the circuit breaker to operate and trips open the AC input and after its first operation due to a fault occurring in the output of the rectifier, it then resumes its protective control over the rectifier to guard it against subsequently occurring faults without the necessity of resetting the circuit by an operator.”

Featherstone also developed a computer-aided recording system for wiring diagrams that would log all changes. He wrote, “Most particle accelerators have extensive networks of control wiring. The usual stream of minor modifications requires hundreds of control wires to be added, deleted, or changed in function every few months. Conventional terminal and cable record books and wiring diagrams are difficult to keep up to date and often are cumbersome to use. We have devised improved computer-aided techniques for organizing information about a control wiring network into compact forms convenient both for trouble-shooting and for new design work….The computer-aided system has been in use for nearly two years at the University of Minnesota proton linear accelerator, which has a control wiring network containing about 10,000 wires. A complete set of record books can be worked out in about 18 minutes on a Control Data 1604 computer. Trouble-shooting, identification of wiring errors, and design of system additions all have benefited from the speed, convenience, and accuracy of the computer-aided system.” “Computer Aided Recording of Control Wiring,” Featherstone, Robert P. and Mayer, William J. in IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science (Vol. 12, Issue 3, June 1967).

While at CERN in 1968, he researched and published “The injection electrostatic deflector (vertical) for the CERN PS booster” (Accelerators and Storage Rings); “Computer routines useful in step-by-step calculations of LINAC R-F system operation; “The injection electrostatic deflector (vertical) for the CERN PS booster;” and “ Computer routines useful in step-by-step calculations of LINAC R-F system operation.” 

Featherstone conducted extensive research while at FERMILab in 1969 on the LINAC system and published numerous papers about it including “Notes on the component identification problem,” “Coaxial transmission line for the NAL 200-MeV LINAC,”  “Phase measurements on the ZGS 50 MeV LINAC,” and “Notes on the LINAC System Timing Problem.”