2002 Weems Award

Presented to: Mr. Daniel A. Tazartes

Citation: For technical leadership in converting from mechanical to optical angular rate sensors.

Mr. Daniel A. Tazartes is currently director of the Navigation and Applied Sensors Technology Center at Northrop Grumman. He has been at Northrop Grumman and Litton Guidance and Control Systems for the past 18 years. During that time, he has successfully introduced several generations of new instrument technologies into inertial and integrated navigation systems. Mr. Tazartes holds 45 issued U.S. patents in the fi elds of laser, fi ber optic, and MEMS sensors, as well as in control algorithms, electronics, and signal processing for inertial sensors and systems. He has published numerous articles on optical sensors for navigation and strapdown navigation technology. At Litton GCS, Mr. Tazartes helped develop the ring-lasergyro- based strapdown navigation systems. His work optimized both the instrument and system designs to make the best use of optical gyroscopes in inertial and GPS-inertial navigation systems. He designed the key compensation and control algorithms enabling the use of ring laser gyros in highly dynamic environments, and he pioneered the use of computer-based signal processing for instrument control. Mr. Tazartes also developed highly effective calibration techniques for navigation systems. As laser-gyro-based navigation matured, Mr. Tazartes developed the architecture for the fi ber-optic-gyro (FOG) based systems. He developed sophisticated closed-loop control of FOGs for vastly improved performance and contributed to the introduction of FOGs and micro-machined accelerometers into miniature inertial measuring units as well as high accuracy navigation systems. Currently, Mr. Tazartes is responsible for the development of the next generation navigation technologies.

He is a member of the ION and the IEEE and actively participates in the development of standards for inertial instruments and systems. Mr. Tazartes received his M.S.E.E from the California Institute of Technology and his B.S. in physics from the University of California at Los Angeles.