Ronald Hugh Barker

Barker (pictured in the back row, second from the left), with his upper school rugby team

Ronald Hugh Barker was born in Dublin in 1915[1] to English parents. His early education years were disrupted by his father's frequent periods of unemployment and moves between Dublin and England to find work as an artist [3] and stained glass window designer. He was apprenticed to Hy. Jas. Salisbury a well known stained glass artist.[4] who can be found in Kelly’s directory for 1912 as an Artist in stained glass, 50 Alma Road, St Albans. In the 1911 census there is an entry for E W Barker as a stained glass designer living in Leyton Road, Harpenden which is not far from St. Albans. [5] His father and family often stayed in meagre lodgings because his father's work was poorly paid and difficult to find. For much of the time, Barker (known since his childhood as Roy) lived at 17, Thomas Street, Heath and Reach with his grandfather, John Taylor and mother Linda Taylor.[2] At age 13 Barker was interviewed by Mr Fredrick Fairbrother, the headmaster of a new school, The Cedars (now known as Cedars Upper School) in Leighton Buzzard. After sitting for an entrance examination, he was admitted to the school. His father died soon after of pneumonia in Youghal, Co. Cork, Ireland when Barker was aged 14. While at school Barker became interested in electronics. He built crystal radio sets and basic three vacuum tube radios using homemade components such as rectifiers, transformers and loudspeakers. His mother, a school teacher,[6] assisted in his education and taught him to play the piano and church organ at the Wesleyan Chapel, Birds Hill, Heath. Barker passed his matriculation exam and won a scholarship to University College Hull and earned a 1st Class Honours degree in physics at the University of London in 1938.[1] His first job coincided with the start of the World War 2. Scientists were declared to be a reserved occupation, which meant that he was not eligible for conscription, thereby allowing him to pursue electronic research in his career.

Barker joined Standard Telephones and Cables (STC) in 1938 and worked there until 1941. He worked in their thermionic valve department, designing dental X-ray tubes and equipment.[7] After a bombing raid over Woolwich in 1941, Roy resigned from STC, as he felt that his work on X-ray tubes did not contribute to the war effort, and returned to Heath and Reach where he met his future wife to be Wendy Emily Hunt [2]who was visiting one of her brothers billeted at Stockgrove Country Park near-by.

Warnham Court, Horsham, c. 1942

Barker then took up a new post as a temporary experimental officer at the Signals Experimental Establishment (SEE) at the Ministry of Supply. He initially worked on Woolwich Common, but soon moved to Warnham Court, near Horsham, England. There, he assisted with the electronics design of Wireless Set No. 19, a standard wireless set used in various armoured vehicles and tanks in World War II. He also contributed to the design of portable two way radio sets for jungle use.[8][9]

The SEE was subsequently renamed the Signals Research and Development Establishment (SRDE) and brought within the Ministry of Supply. In summer 1943 staff were moved to Christchurch, Dorset. In 1944 the UK guided weapons program came into being, for which Barker conducted telemetry research.[1] Weapons testing initially occurred at Ynyslas,[10] before a special guided weapons range was built at the Royal Aerospace Establishment (RAE) in Aberporth.[11] The first experimental system was named LOPGAP, an acronym of Liquid Oxygen Propelled Guided Anti-aircraft Projectile. Barker worked on aerial design to improve telemetry, writing an article on the subject that was published in Wireless Engineer in November 1948.[12][13]

Fleet Air Arm Anson with the first British LOPGAP guided missile at Somerford Airfield, Christchurch, 29 May 1945. In place of the warhead, the missile includes telemetry testing equipment.

Barker joined the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE) as a corporate member in 1945.[14] From 1945 to 1947, Barker was responsible for devising, developing and producing the first telemetry system for guided weapons.[15] In 1946, Barker read a paper describing his guidance system at the first organised telemetry conference at Princeton University.[16][17]

Telemetry trials at Ynyslas, Wales, 1945

Dr R H Barker and Peter Cutler in the telemetry van during tests.

At the end of the war, Barker was appointed as a senior scientific officer to research speech cryptography, which involved work on early computers and digital transmission.[18] Barker used a technique by which speech waveforms were encoded digitally – similar to contemporary methods for encoding music – and then scrambled the stream of binary digits by multiplying it by a second stream produced synchronously in a pseudorandom number generator. During his time at SRDE, Barker led a team of 12 scientists. He applied his work on digital electronics had been extended to weapons controls,[19] servo systems and communication by pulse-code modulation,[20] for which Barker used the z-transform method for analysis.[21]

Barker also invented the Barker code, a method for synchronising digital communication systems, which he described in a paper entitled "Group Synchronisation of Binary Digital Systems".[22] The Oxford Dictionary of Computer Science defines a Barker sequence as

a sequence of symbols (binary or *q-ary) that, when embedded in a string of randomly chosen symbols (from the same alphabet), has zero autocorrelation except in the coincidence position. Barker sequences are used to check, and if necessary to correct, the synchronization and framing of received data.[23]

In digital electronics, the Barker code used to check the synchronisation and framing of received data so that the data is understood correctly by the receiver. Barker said: "A sequence of binary digits has very little meaning unless the significance of the individual digits is known."[24] The Barker code has been used in near earth space communications, such as the Galileo global navigation satellite system, the Global Positioning System, Skylab[25] and on the Apollo missions.[26][27] Barker code was also used for early deep space exploration telemetry, such as the Pioneer 10 mission.[28]

In April 1954, Barker was awarded a PhD by the London University; he was then promoted to Senior Principal Scientific Officer.[1] Thereafter, he became the Assistant Director of the Directorate of Electronics Research and Development (Air) at the Ministry of Supply headquarters,[9] where he was responsible for the technical administration of research and development in airborne radar, navigation aids, maritime devices and air communications.[29] In 1957 Barker returned to SRDE as Superintendent of Research.[7]

In 1959 Barker took a job as Director of the Central Electricity Research Laboratories (CERL) in Leatherhead,[7] where he was responsible for the day-to-day operation of the laboratories, as well as recruitment, increasing the scientific staff from 250 to 600 people. Barker was elected a Fellow of the IEE on December 1, 1966. He served on various committees of the Power Division and the Control and Automation Division, becoming Division Chairman in 1971.[7][14] Barker became a member of the council and served on the Membership Committee for many years;[7] he remained active as a member until his death in 2015.[30] On 6 March 1962 Barker was elected a Fellow of the Institute of Physics and of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, serving on the Automatic Control committee of the latter.

Barker was named to the board of directors of the Pullin Group in 1961.[1] While there, he assembled a team of scientists to conduct optics research.[31] After the company was taken over by The Rank Organisation in 1964,[32] he became unhappy with the changes the Rank Organisation made to the company's operations. He had no say in this and it soon became apparent that he would have no opportunity for any interesting research, and the future looked uninviting. In 1965, Barker wrote an article on ball bearing motors.[33]

In 1965 Barker made his last career move, becoming Deputy Director of the Royal Armament Research Establishment (RARDE) at Fort Halstead, which afforded him the rank of chief experimental officer.[1] At Fort Halstead Barker was responsible for the assessment of non-nuclear weapons systems.[7] Barker retired in May 1979.

As a result of being raised in a poor household, Barker preferred to construct and repair his own gadgets, often from scrap materials, rather than purchasing factory-made items. In 1943, Barker married Wendy Hunt[34] at the Church of St Augustine in South Croydon, and they had two sons. During retirement Roy belonged to three bridge clubs, playing duplicate bridge at county level. He was still playing at his local bridge club in Verwood until his 99th birthday. Barker died in Bournemouth hospital aged 99 on 7 October 2015.[35]

• Who's Who (113 ed.). London: Adam and Charles Black. 1978. p. 128. Retrieved 26 May 2020.
• Who Was Who. Oxford University Press. 2020. doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U6495.
• Media related to Ronald Hugh Barker (physicist) at Wikimedia Commons