2022 Per Enge Early Achievement Award

Presented to: Dr. Li-Ta Hsu

Citation: For outstanding research leadership and innovation in urban navigation and positioning

Dr. Li-Ta Hsu is an associate professor in the Department of Aeronautical and Aviation Engineering at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), who pioneered the application of GNSS vector tracking to detection and mitigation of NLOS reception and multipath interference, which was also the focus of Dr. Hsu's PhD thesis.

Dr. Hsu has made numerous contributions to urban navigation. While a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Tokyo (2014–2016 with Dr. Gu and Prof. Kamijo), Dr. Hsu developed the first 3D-mapping-aided (3DMA) GNSS algorithm to achieve sub-3m accuracy without prior initialization. After joining PolyU, Dr. Hsu extended 3DMA GNSS to dual-frequency, RTK, INS/GNSS, and collaborative positioning systems. Dr. Hsu is a world leader in 3DMA GNSS.

Dr. Hsu has made several major contributions to navigation using lidar. Dr. Hsu and his group have successfully deployed lidar to detect GNSS NLOS reception and extended this lidar-aided GNSS to RTK, achieving decimeter accuracy in urban canyons. Finally, they have greatly improved the performance of lidar SLAM, using it to generate high-definition mapping for autonomous vehicles.

Dr. Hsu and his group have developed open-source GNSS factor graph optimization (FGO) code, now widely used in both the navigation and robotics communities. Dr. Hsu's ION webinar talk on FGO is the most widely viewed video on ION’s YouTube channel. Dr. Hsu is an Associate Fellow of RIN and is the recipient of a prestigious Limin Endowment at PolyU. Dr. Hsu is now collaborating with industrial partners to implement 3DMA GNSS, GNSS vector tracking, and lidar SLAM algorithms in their products.

Dr. Hsu was a visiting researcher at University College London and at Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology, and received BS and PhD degrees in aeronautics and astronautics from National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan, in 2007 and 2013, respectively.