Medal of Honor Goes to Microsensor and Methods Pioneer

IEEE Life Fellow Asad M. Madni is the recipient of this yr’s IEEE Medal of Honor. He’s being acknowledged “for pioneering contributions to the event and commercialization of progressive sensing and techniques applied sciences, and for distinguished analysis management.”

The IEEE Basis sponsors the award.

Madni has been a distinguished adjunct professor {of electrical} and pc engineering and distinguished scientist since 2011 on the Samueli Faculty of Engineering on the College of California, Los Angeles. He’s additionally a school Fellow on the UCLA Institute of Transportation Research and the college’s Linked Autonomous Electrical Automobile consortium.

Earlier than beginning his profession in academia, Madni served as chairman, president, and chief government of Systron Donner and president, chief working officer, and chief expertise officer of BEI.

Madni led the event and commercialization of clever microsensors and techniques for the aerospace, protection, industrial, and transportation industries. The GyroChip expertise he helped develop at BEI revolutionized navigation and stability in aerospace and automotive techniques, making them safer.

Whereas at BEI, he additionally led the event of an extraordinarily sluggish movement servo management system for NASA’s Hubble Area Telescope’s star selector. The system, which continues to be used right now, gives the telescope with unprecedented pointing accuracy and stability, permitting astronomers to make new discoveries and be taught extra concerning the universe’s historical past.

“Dr. Madni has excellent accomplishments in each managing analysis and improvement, and in personally inventing and innovating applied sciences on the chopping fringe of his area,” says one engineer who endorsed Madni for the award. “I do know of nobody else extra deserving of the IEEE Medal of Honor.”

SMART SENSORS

Beneath Madni’s management, BEI’s quartz charge sensor expertise, later generally known as the GyroChip, was developed within the early Nineties. The expertise is the primary microelectromechanical system (MEMS)-based gyroscope and inertial measurement unit for aerospace and automotive security purposes, in accordance with an entry about Madni on the Engineering and Know-how Historical past Wiki. It’s smaller and extra cost-efficient and dependable than prior applied sciences.

The GyroChip is used worldwide in additional than 90 kinds of plane, together with the steadiness management techniques of the Boeing 777; the yaw damper for the Boeing 737; and in most enterprise jets as a sensing component in perspective management and reference packages. It is also used for steerage, navigation, and management in main U.S. missiles, underwater autonomous autos, and helicopters, in addition to NASA’s Mars rover Sojourner and AERCam Dash autonomous robotic digital camera. The GyroChip can also be employed within the U.S. Civil Air Patrol’s Airborne Actual-time Cueing Hyperspectral Enhanced Reconnaissance system, which is deployed in search-and-rescue missions.

After the aerospace and protection markets started to say no following the tip of the Chilly Struggle, Madni led the protection conversion of the GyroChip expertise from the aerospace and protection sectors to the automotive and business aviation markets. The GyroChip grew to become the inspiration of car dynamic management, which displays a driver’s actions together with braking and steering to fight the lack of steering management that may happen in unsafe driving circumstances. The GyroChip is utilized in greater than 80 fashions of passenger automobiles worldwide for digital stability management and rollover safety.

The GyroChip and quite a few different sensing, actuation, and signal-processing methods developed by Madni laid the inspiration for autonomous autos. The applied sciences and methods are used for options reminiscent of lane-change help, autonomous cruise management, steering and wheel-speed detection, navigation, and drowsy- and drunken-driver detection.

Whereas at Systron Donner, Madni led the event of RF and microwave techniques and instrumentation—which considerably enhanced the fight readiness of the U.S. Navy and its allies. The applied sciences offered the U.S. Division of Protection with the power to simulate extra threats for warfare coaching which can be consultant of ECM environments.

His present analysis focuses on the event of wideband devices with ultrahigh information throughput to detect one-time uncommon occasions and most cancers cells within the bloodstream, in addition to a single-shot community analyzer for quick characterization of digital and optoelectronic units.

Madni is also main analysis within the areas of computational sensing; wearable sensors; synthetic intelligence and machine studying; and demand-and-response methods for the sensible grid and electrical autos.

He’s a member of the U.S. Nationwide Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of the U.S. Nationwide Academy of Inventors, the Royal Academy of Engineering, and the Canadian Academy of Engineering.

Madni, an eminent member of the IEEE Eta Kappa Nu honor society, has obtained quite a few different awards through the years. They embrace the 2020 American Society of Mechanical Engineers Soichiro Honda Medal; the 2019 IEEE Frederik Philips Award; a 2016 Ellis Island Medal of Honor; the 2012 IEEE Aerospace and Digital Methods Society’s Pioneer Award; the 2015 Establishment of Engineering and Know-how J.J. Thomson Medal; the 2010 IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Society’s Profession Excellence Award; and an IEEE Millennium Medal.