2006 Burka Award
Recipients: Dr. Suneel I. Sheikh and Dr. Darryll J. Pines
Citation: For their paper, "Recursive Estimation of Spacecraft
Position and Velocity Using X-Ray Pulsar Time of
Arrival Measurements," published in the Fall 2006
issue of NAVIGATION, The Journal of The Institute
of Navigation, Vol. 53, No. 3, p. 149.
Dr. Suneel I. Sheikh is the CEO and chief
research scientist of ASTER Labs, Inc. His doctoral
research investigated the use of X-ray pulsars for
spacecraft navigation. The research included cataloguing
sources with characteristics conducive to
navigation, deriving navigation algorithms based
upon the pulsed radiation, and developing software to demonstrate the
performance capabilities of a pulsar-based navigation system. Before
receiving his doctorate, Dr. Sheikh worked for nearly ten years in the
aerospace industry, first for Martin Marietta Corp. in its Titan IV launch
group in vehicle guidance analysis and later as a scientist at the Honeywell
Technology Center in Minneapolis. Dr. Sheikh earned his Ph.D.
from the University of Maryland in 2005 and his M.S. in aeronautics
and astronautics from Stanford University. He has bachelor’s degrees in
aerospace engineering and mechanics and in mathematics from the
University of Minnesota.
Dr. Darryll J. Pines is a professor and chair
of the Department of Aerospace Engineering at
the University of Maryland. He recently completed
a three-year tour of duty as a program manager
in the Defense Sciences Office and the Tactical
Technology Office at DARPA. While at DARPA, he
initiated several UAV and navigation programs including Sensor Dart,
Long Gun, the X-ray NAVigation and Autonomous Position-(XNAV)
and the Nano Air Vehicle (NAV) programs. As a former Department of
Energy technical staff member working at the Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory, Dr. Pines developed advanced guidance algorithms
for interceptors and the final approach algorithm for the 1994
Clementine flyby mission which was the first probe to discover water
near the south pole of the moon. He has published seven book chapters,
approximately 50 journal papers, and more than 150 conference
articles on topics in structural dynamics, structural health monitoring
and vehicle flight dynamics, control and navigation. Dr. Pines graduated
from MIT with a Ph.D. and an M.S. in mechanical engineering.
His B.S. is in mechanical engineering from UC Berkeley.