2003 Fellow

Presented to: Prof. Gérard Lachapelle

Citation: For his sustained contributions in the field of global navigation satellite systems, including differential GPS, kinematic carrier-phase methods and applications, integration, and educational efforts.

Prof. Gérard Lachapelle has been with the Department of Geomatics Engineering at the University of Calgary since 1988 where he holds a Canada Research Chair and an iCore Chair in wireless location.

From 1980 to 1988, Prof. Lachapelle was vice president of research and development at Nortech Surveys Inc. and Sheltech Canada where he was responsible for early GPS receiver testing, differential method and software development, and applications. He has contributed to many aspects of ground- and satellite-based navigation, including the development and testing of kinematic carrier-phase real-time differential methods using single and multiple reference stations, GPS based attitude determination, performance evaluation of GPS/Galileo, Loran-C calibration, and cellular telephone location. Prof. Lachapelle has published widely, and the GPS software he has co-authored with his colleagues and students is licensed worldwide.

He holds degrees in surveying and geodesy from Laval University, Canada, the University of Oxford, U.K.; the University of Helsinki, Finland; and the Technical University at Graz, Austria.

Prof. Lachapelle has been active in numerous associations and has held these positions among others: president of the Canadian Institute of Geomatics, chair of the Canadian Navigation Society, and chair of the Alberta Section of the Institute of Navigation.

He served as program chair and general chair of ION GPS 2001 and ION GPS 2002, respectively. He has also taught GPS-related short courses for Navtech Seminars Inc. since 1989. He has received numerous awards, including the Canadian Aeronautics and Space Institute's Alouette Award and the ION's Johannes Kepler Award. In 2002, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.