2021 Fellow

Presented to: Dr. Demoz Gebre-Egziabher

Citation: For his contributions in the development and application of multi-sensor integration supporting UAVs and safety of life applications.

Dr. Demoz Gebre-Egziabher has made outstanding contributions in the fields of multi-sensor integration and stochastic modelling of their associated error sources. He has incorporated disparate signals from different sensors in order to allow for graceful degradation and recovery from GNSS interruptions. His work further incorporates detailed characterization of errors to support integrity analysis and sophisticated algorithms to extract maximum information from the available data.

His current area of research is in navigation, guidance and control of aerospace vehicles, with a focus on the application of estimation theory to the development of algorithms and design methodologies to optimally fuse the information from multiple sensors and systems. One of the challenges his group addresses when dealing with problems for aerospace applications, or other safety and liability critical operations, is being able to precisely quantify (in statistical terms) the level of reliability of the algorithms and systems. Examples of the engineering application of his work are in the developmental attitude determination and high-accuracy navigation systems for spacecraft, aircraft and UAVs as well as evaluation operations of small autonomous aerial vehicles in the national airspace system. His group’s UAV and Small Satellite Laboratories supports education by bringing real-world aerospace development and flight-testing experiences into undergraduate- and graduate-level courses and leading-edge aerospace research.

Dr. Gebre-Egziabher has published extensively, winning the ION’s Burka Award twice. He has served ION in various leadership roles. He has also served as an associate editor of NAVIGATION and for the IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems. He is an Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).

Dr. Demoz Gebre-Egziabher is currently a professor in the department of Aerospace Engineering Mechanics at the University of Minnesota. He is a registered professional engineer and licensed private pilot (with an instrument rating). He holds an MS in Mechanical Engineering from The George Washington University and a PhD in Aeronautics and Astronautics from Stanford University.