IEEE AESS Board of Governors Class of 2026–2028

We are pleased to offer Tutorial VII to members of the IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Society. This is the seventh tutorial published by IEEE AESS. The first one was published in January 2004. It is a rare article from which nothing is to be learned. What do we mean by tutorial? According to Peter Willett, our Vice President of Publications, there are two kinds of tutorial articles. Those that provide a primer on an established topic, and those that let us in on the ground floor of something of emerging importance. In both cases, our authors are for the most part noted experts willing to share their knowledge and experience in a written field guide.

The Summit Exercise was a success because it brought together more than 40 knowledgeable engineers and their thought-provoking work on 30 current engineering topics, and it demonstrated good systems engineering and collaboration. The Exercise resulted in reasonable prioritizations, technical recommendations, and breadth of knowledge expansion for most people on the related topics. The power behind this activity remains available to anyone that takes the time to review the individual presentations and participate in the Exercise. The key aspects for IEEE AESS include the topic selections, the Exercise development, and the summary debriefings from the participants. The SE methodology could be utilized by AESS Chapters as a useful exercise in member introductions, idea generation, and appreciation of IEEE engineering challenges (as demonstrated in the AESS Washington, DC/Northern Virginia Chapters). There would be a benefit to IEEE AESS if these existing and additional topics were further vetted, to a more complete solution, and direct relations to the AESS readers who develop systems in many IEEE areas.

In mid-September, the IEEE AESS Board of Governors held its fall conference in St. Louis, MO. One of the items on the agenda included electing a new Vice President of Publications beginning January 2015. I would like to announce that Dr. Peter Willett, our current VP, will be completing his tenure at the end of this year and he will be succeeded by Dr. Dale Blair. I hold both of these individuals in very high esteem, both professionally and personally. Dr. Willett's term extends three years, starting January 1, 2012 and ending December 31, 2014. Prior to this position, Peter was the Editor-In-Chief for the IEEE AESS Transactions for 6 years, January 2006 to December 2012, and before that he was the Associate Editor for Fusion/Tracking for the IEEE Transactions on AES. This represents just a small sampling of his volunteer work. As EIC of the AESS Magazine, I came to know Peter and his deep dedication to the IEEE AES Society particularly in the area of publications. His role was strictly as a volunteer yet each new assignment he took on required increasing levels of time and attention. You'd never know that working with him though, because he took it all in stride and continued to provide the best service to the society and the publications that he possibly could. As VP of Pubs, he continued to directly support the Magazine and the Transactions in numerous ways including reviewing, shaping content, driving strategic plans, budgets, and participating in all aspects of the publications. For the magazine, he led the effort to investigate and initiate advertising which was no small task. Peter is a strong and active leader, yet incredibly humble. I learned a great deal from him regarding publishing and IEEE policies but more than that, I learned about handling challenging situations with grace, humility, and humor. I think if you asked him, he would take no personal credit for any improvements associated with the magazine but rather offer all the credit to others. In fact, when I asked him what being VP of Publications (relative to the magazine) has meant to him personally, his first response was to say that “… it was fantastic to be a part of such a positive team.” He then went on to identify members of the Editorial Board, the IEEE AESS Board of Governors, and IEEE staff. The growth of the magazine is something he didn't want to say he was proud of because he didn't want to claim that credit for himself. Rather, he stated he was proud to be a part of the team that helped to grow and shape the magazine. I think his response sums up very clearly his character and represents “The Big Boss” that we've all come to know and love. I'm thrilled to say that Dr. Willett will not be leaving the publications team but will continue to work as an Associate Editor. I know I speak not only for myself but for the rest of AESS when I say “Thank you Peter, for all that you've done and all that you continue to do.”

IEEE AESS is pleased to announce that Dr. Ram Gopal Gupta is the recipient of the 2011 IEEE Member and Geographics Activities (MGA) Leadership Award with the following citation: “For his distinguished leadership and outstanding contributions as a volunteer, at the Section and Regional levels, serving the IEEE for the benefit of its members and the engineering profession by popularizing IEEE in local industry and common engineering students”

The digital revolution of the late 1960s started to define architectures of next-generation aerospace systems. While extremely modest by today's standards, the advent of semiconductor memories, high speed and resolution analog-to-digital converters (ADCs), and microprocessors offered capabilities that were not possible to realize with analog systems alone. This coupled with electronic miniaturization and digital signal processing (DSP) techniques allowed systems to be smaller, smarter, and more reliable. Upon graduation from UCLA with my undergraduate and graduate degrees in electrical sciences and engineering, I enthusiastically sought employment where I could use my education to advance my field in a significant way. While a graduate student, I taught electronics, electrical engineering, and control systems at Pacific States University, a private college in Los Angeles. My first real-world experience was derived by my employment at Pertec Corporation (Chatsworth, California) as an engineer in the development of computer peripherals that included tape transports, disc drives, and formatters. I extensively utilized the knowledge I had acquired in the classroom in the design of these systems; however, the most important education I received was the importance of designing systems for performance, quality, and price. While the job offered me numerous opportunities and I worked with an excellent team, I was hoping for more creative challenges. The opportunity arrived in 1975 when Systron Donner Corporation's Microwave Division (SDMD) offered me a position as a project engineer to develop the company's first spectrum analyzer with digital storage display. SDMD was one of three leading companies specializing in radio frequency (RF) and microwave components and instrumentation. The company's line of spectrum analyzers used the bulky, expensive analog storage tubes, which had severe limitations, including display flicker, poor reliability, and the inability to view multiple waveforms simultaneously. I was promised a technician, a junior engineer, and an assembler who would be devoted solely to my project. Gullible as I was in those days, I believed in this support that I was going to receive only to realize shortly thereafter that due to "emergencies on other projects," I would be the lone warrior championing this project. In hindsight, I believe that this was the greatest learning experience of my life. Not only did I design the entire system, but I learned the value of proper soldering, circuit layout, interface between analog and digital circuits, and noise reduction techniques. The digital storage spectrum analyzer incorporated an 8-bit successive approximation ADC and eight of Intel's newly introduced 2101 (1K×1) random access memories to create a memory with 256×1024 resolution. This, together with DSP techniques, proved capable of processing the downconverted intermediate frequency from the RF/microwave tracking receiver to replace the bulky, expensive, and inefficient analog storage tube-based analyzer and provided, never before realized features, such as adaptive sweep, electronic frequency marker, electronic baseline clipper, simultaneous viewing of multiple waveforms, and other important features [1]. For its time, this contribution was considered seminal and resulted in three important patents for SD, with me as the sole inventor [2], [3], [4].

Call for nominations: IEEE AESS Judith A. Resnik space award

IEEE AESS Publications Board

IEEE AESS Directory

The Robert T. Hill Best Dissertation Award is an annual IEEE AESS award to recognize candidates that have recently received a Ph.D. degree and have written an outstanding Ph.D. dissertation that has made particularly noteworthy contributions in a field of interest of the Aerospace and Electronic Systems Society. Its purpose is to grant international recognition for the most outstanding Ph.D. dissertation by an AESS member in the year she/he is nominated. The winner of this distinguished award receives a commemorative plaque and a $1000 honorarium.

IEEE AESS Directory

Being elevated to the level of Fellow for IEEE is an incredibly prestigious honor. It is a distinction that is reserved for IEEE members who are recognized for extraordinary accomplishments in their felds of expertise by leaders in those felds. At the time of nomination, each candidate must currently hold Senior or Life Senior Member grade. This distinction is conferred by the IEEE Board of Directors. Self-nomination is not permitted so each candidate must be nominated by someone else who oversees preparation of the nomination package. This package is quite extensive and includes but is not limited to the candidate's publications, patents, and letters of reference from other Fellows regarding specific contributions in their particular feld of expertise and the impacts they have had in the feld. To provide a reference for the distinguishing significance of this Grade, there are currently approximately 380,000 members of IEEE internationally and the total number of Fellows selected in any single year does not exceed one-tenth of one percent of the total voting membership. Each nominator must identify an IEEE Society or Technical council whose evaluating committee will assess the nominee's technical qualifications and contributions. Therefore, it is with great pride and pleasure that I announce to you those members of our IEEE AESS Society who have been elevated to the level of Fellow in 2014. Six of these members were evaluated directly by our society and five were evaluated by others. Below is a list of these outstanding researchers and practitioners along with a brief summary of their most significant contributions.

After the experience gained in 2020, the Organizers of MetroAeroSpace 2021 were ready to move the conference to a virtual conference. We improved our LIVE online approach including new facilities in the framework called “WeConf,” the platform developed by Athena Srl, the Company managing the conference. Also, this year MetroAeroSpace as LIVE online conference was a heavy task to manage but we tried to recreate on the web the “spirit” of MetroAeroSpace, a place where to discuss, to cooperate, to create new contacts. The choice of a LIVE online conference gave us these opportunities. After many editions, MetroAeroSpace represents the traditional international meeting place in the world of research in the field of measurement and instrumentation for aerospace involving institutions and academia in a discussion on the state-of-the-art concerning issues that require a joint approach by experts of measurement, instrumentation, and industrial testing, as professional engineers, and experts in innovation metrology, typically academics and the user community as well. The increasing number of scientists attending MetroAeroSpace and coming from fields at times far from engineering led to a positive hybridization of the conference.

IEEE AESS Board of Governors Class of 2025-2027

IEEE AESS Virtual Distinguished Lecturers Series

IEEE AESS active fellows