The Pioneer Award is selected by the Professional Group on Aeronautical and Navigational Electronics and has been given out annually since 1949. The Pioneer Award is awarded to an individual or team for significant contributions of interest to the IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Society. To ensure proper historical perspective, the award is given for contributions that have been made at least twenty years prior to the award year.
Recipients Year Recipient(s) Contribution1949 Thomas C. Rives Leadership in the development of aircraft electronics 1950 L. M. Clements Electronic Countermeasures 1951 Harold M. McClelland “Highways in the Sky”–The forerunner of today's ATC 1952 A. Hoyt Taylor Use of radio waves for detection of ship traffic (circa 1922) 1953 David G. C. Luck Radio direction-finding for aircraft and the omnidirectional range 1954 Francis W. Dunmore Replacement of radio batteries by AC; radio aids to marine and air navigation; blind landing system (today’s ILS) 1955 Lewis M. Hull Wave propagation to/from aircraft; the Kolster localizer system 1956 Alfred W. Marriner & Wallace G. Smith Development facilities for aircraft communications, navigation and traffic control including AACS 1956 Harry Diamond (P) Radio aids to navigation; radio range; direction finding; instrumented low approach 1956 Wayne G. Eaton (P) Ground and airborne radio equipment 1956 John W. Greig (P) Automatic phase comparison direction finding 1956 Thorp Hiscock (P) Two-way voice radio for aircraft 1956 Frederick A. Kolster (P) Marine radio direction finding; radio compass 1956 William H. Murphy (P) Airborne antennas and radio range systems 1956 John Stone (P) Radio direction finding (circa 1900) 1957 Lawrence A. Hyland Direction finding, altimetry, ignition shielding, and radar 1957 Alessandro Artom (P) Directional properties of radio transmission and reception (circa 1905) 1958 Albert F. Hegenberger & Clayton C. Shangraw Four-course radio range beacon 1958 Malcolm P. Hanson (P) Arctic, Antarctic and transatlantic flight radio communication 1959 Henri G. Busignies & Francis L. Moseley Aircraft automatic radio direction finding1960 John H. Dellinger Aircraft approach and landing electronics1960 Wilbur L. Webb (P) Visual “L—R” radio compass1961 John Alvin Pierce Radio navigation systems: Loran, Skywave, RaduX, Omega 1962 Donald M. Stuart VHF omni-range (VOR)1963 Luis W. Alvarez Aircraft approach and landing radar1964 Ernst Ludwig Kramar Sonne (Consol) and other instrument landing systems (ILS) 1965 Andrew Alford VOR & ILS navigation antennas; the Alford Loop 1966 Robert J. Dippy Hyperbolic radio navigation (GEE and LORAN) 1966 Otto Scheller (P) The radio range (circa 1907) 1967 Lloyd Espenschied & Russell C. Newhouse Frequency modulated radio altimeters 1968 William J. Tull Aircraft ground speed using Doppler 1969 William J. O’Brien & Harvey F. Schwarz DECCA (hyperbolic) navigation 1970 Paul G. Hansel Doppler VOR 1971 Robert L. Frank & Winslow Palmer LORAN-C navigation 1972 Myron H. Nichols Time-division multiplex telemetry 1973 Frederic Calland Williams Secondary radar beacon design 1973 Bertram Vivian Bowden Secondary radar system development 1973 Kenneth Ernest Harris (P) Air traffic control secondary radar 1974 George B. Litchford & Joseph Lyman Precision omnidirectional microwave beacons 1975 Ivan A. Getting Microwave radar 1976 Spencer Kellogg II Zero reader flight display 1977 Robert M. Page Monostatic radar 1978 Charles S. Draper Inertial technology 1979 Peter R. Murray Pilotless aircraft 1980 Sven H. Dodington Distance measuring equipment 1981 Louis A. deRosa (P), Mortimer Rogoff, Paul E. Green, Jr. & Wilbur B. Davenport, Jr. Spread-spectrum communications 1982 Arthur A. Collins Voice and data radio communications and electronics 1983 Allan Ashley, Joseph E. Herrmann & James S. Perry Voice and data radio communications and electronics 1984 Leroy C. Perkins, Harry B. Smith & David H. Mooney High-repetition-rate airborne pulse-doppler radar 1985 Carl A. Wiley Synthetic-aperture radar 1986 William H. Guier, George C. Weiffenbach, Richard B. Kershner (P), & Frank T. McClure (P) Transit satellite navigation 1987 Rudolph A. Stampfl & Peter H. Werenfels Weather satellite automatic picture transmission 1988 Charles E. Cook & William M. Siebert Radar pulse compression 1989 Frederick H. Battle, Jr., Abraham Tatz & Joseph E. Woodward Microwave landing systems 1990 Jay W. Forrester & Robert R. Everett The Whirlwind computer 1991 Fred M. Staudaher, Melvin Labitt & Frank R. Dickey, Jr. Airborne moving-target radars 1992 William C. Eppers Laser systems 1993 William F. Bahret Stealth technology 1994 Bradford W. Parkinson Global Positioning System (GPS) 1995 Robert E. Cowdery & William A. Skillman Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) 1996 Richard B. Marsten Direct Broadcast Satellites 1997 John H. Bryant (P), James Cheal & Vincent J. McHenry Subminiature Type A (SMA RF) Coaxial connectors 1998 John N. Entzminger, Charles A. Fowler & William J. Kenneally Concepts, ideas & designs leading to JointSTARS 1999 Tom M. Hyltin & Britton T. Vincent, Jr. Monolithic microwave integrated circuits & solid-state phased array radar 2000 Herbert G. Weiss Space Surveillance Radar Development 2001 Milton E. Radant Airborne Radar Signal Processing 2002 Joseph A. Meyer Conceptualization of the Personal Tracking System (PTS) 2003 Russel Boario ; William Brown; Jack L. Walker 2004 Erwin C. Gangl For development of MIL-STD-1553: Multiplexed Data Bus Avionic Intra-System Communication Standard 2005 Charles Edward Muehe For the invention of the Moving Target Detector (MTD) digital signal processor for aircraft surveillance radar 2006 William Fishbein For developing the fundamental concepts, system designs, and basic technology underpinning the design, development, testing, and fielding of the U.S. Army Firefinder family of radars 2007 George M. Kirkpatrick For the original development of monopulse techniques for radar systems 2008 Robert D. Briskman For development of Commercial and Broadcast Satellites Over the Past 40 Years. 2009 Yakov D. Shirman For the independent discovery of matched filtering, adaptive filtering, and high-resolution pulse compression for an entire generation of Russian and Ukrainian radars. 2010 Daniel A. Tazartes For Pioneering Contributions to the Development of Strapdown Inertial Instruments 2011 James V. Leonard For Pioneering Work in the Field of Aircraft/Missile Launch Systems 2012 Asad M. Madni For Seminal and Pioneering Contributions to the Development and Commercialization of Aerospace Electronic Systems2013 George Lutes and Kam Lau For Enabling NASA’s Deep Space Communications and Radar Imaging System via Ultra-Stable Frequency/Timing Fiber Optic Transfer 2014 John Hines For contributions in the development and deployment of the Very High Speed Integrated Circuits Hardware Description Language (VHDL) 2015 Yakov S. Shifrin Founding Contributions to Modern Radio Physics and Statistical Antenna Theory (SAT) 2016 William J. Baldygo and Michael C. Wicks Algorithm Development, Experimental Demonstration, and Transition of Expert System Constant False Alarm Rate (CFAR) to Airborne Radar Systems 2017 Paul Antonik and Gerard T. Capraro Modeling, Simulation Analysis, Design of a Real-Time Expert System Constant False and Alarm Rate (CFAR) 2018 James J. Spilker For Contributions to the Technology and Implementation of the GPS Civilian Navigation System. 2019 Azad M. Madni For contributions to advanced simulation-based training and intelligent decision aiding for aerospace systems. 2020 Alfonso Farina For pioneering contributions to the analysis, design, development, and experimentation of digital-based adaptive radar systems.
(P) denotes posthumous award.
See also List of engineering awards
References
External links Pioneer Award Committee of the IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Society