Professor Watton started his career in industry as a Senior Systems Engineer working on the electrohydraulic control and steering dynamics of automated pipe-laying machines. Following a period at Huddersfield University, he returned to Cardiff as a Lecturer in Mechanical Engineering in 1979.
Since 1969, research work has been continually directed towards fluid power control and, latterly, condition monitoring. He gained his D.Sc. in 1996 and in 1999 was awarded the IMechE Bramah Medal for "outstanding research contributions to fluid power". Professor Watton is a Chartered Engineer and a Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.
Professor Watton has taken a broad approach to the study of fluid power control, covering topics such as component design, systems simulation and CAD, fluid mechanics and the application of LDA/CFD techniques, control techniques, condition monitoring and dault diagnosis, the applications AI to modelling/adaptive control/fault classification, special applications such as high-water-content systems. He has been involved as co-designer on two novel mobile machines for general loader/agricultural/forestry applications, and the Soil Nailing machine for civil engineering applications; both machines are in commercial operation. The work on condition monitoring and fault diagnosis and, in particular, the application of on-line computer-based techniques has led to pioneering applications in the steel processing industry. He has published over 160 papers and 3 books and ahs supervised many M.Sc. and Ph.D. students over the past 20 years, including Eng.D. students with Corus plc since 1992. He does consultancy work with fluid power companies and has been active as an expert witness for several international companies over the past 10 years. Professor Watton teaches control theory, condition monitoring, fluid power, vibrations and dynamics at undergraduate level.
