2020 Weems Award

Presented to: Dr. Charles K. Toth

Citation: For significant contributions to the development and implementation of multi-sensor integrated navigation systems and for demonstrated excellence as an academic mentor and professional leader.

Dr. Charles Toth was the key architect of the development and implementation of the first mobile mapping system (MMS), one of the first civilian applications of GPS. This technology became the frontrunner of acquiring street data for visualization to support location-based services.

In late 1990s, Dr. Toth led the OSU team in the groundbreaking project Airborne Integrated Mapping System (AIMS), which delivered the world’s first fully digital directly georeferenced high-accuracy airborne mapping system prototype based on tight integration of GPS and inertial navigation unit (IMU). This technology was first commercially used during the Ground Zero emergency mapping operations. From these efforts, he is credited with coining the terms “direct and indirect georeferencing”.

In mid-2000, Dr. Toth was one of the principal architects behind the design and prototyping the NGA-sponsored novel multi-sensor and artificial intelligence (AI)-based personal navigator (PN) for emergency crews and dismounted soldiers. Additionally, Dr. Toth was the lead mapping expert to support navigation for the OSU team in the three DARPA Ground/Urban Challenges (2004, 2005, and 2007). He was an early advocate of using complex geospatial data, such as terrain models and imagery to support vehicle navigation to improve localization and robustness of scene understanding.

Dr. Toth is a research professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental and Geodetic Engineering, The Ohio State University. As an academic educator, he graduated 40+ MSc and PhD students. He is the managing director of the Consortium of Ohio Universities on Navigation and Timekeeping (COUNT). He has led many volunteer organizations and is one of the three originators of the International Symposium on Mobile Mapping Technology (MMT). He received a PhD in Geo-Information Sciences from the Technical University of Budapest, Hungary. He is a Fellow of the American Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS) and of the International Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS).