Aerospace and Electronic Systems - March 2019 - 5

DOI. No. 10.1109/MAES.2019.2909252

Editorial

t is my pleasure to announce the winner of the 2018 Harry Rowe Mimno Award-the award to what is judged to be the
best paper published in the AESS Magazine in 2017. The Mimno Committee had several nice papers to consider, based
on nomination packages, quality, and impact as measured by citation by other authors. This year the Mimno goes to "Expert
System CFAR: Algorithm Development, Experimental Demonstration, and Transition to Airborne Radar Systems" by
Michael Wicks and William Baldygo, from the September 2017 issue.
A detailed nomination package from Dr. Lorenzo Lo Monte (Telephonics) makes clear the contribution. "Dr. Wicks
explained to all who would listen that each CFAR detector was optimum only under very restrictive conditions, and as such,
would perform below optimum when those conditions were not met, which was most of the time." "That first Expert System
CFAR was so simple. Just several different Ordered Statistic CFAR and Trimmed Mean CFAR detectors running in parallel,
each processing the same radar data. Fusion was accomplished via majority rule polling of the various detector outputs."
"When map data were incorporated into Expert System CFAR, more sophisticated fusion rules prevailed. At that time, many
signal processing experts told him not to pursue this line of reasoning, since the data being fused are 100% dependent. The
experts were wrong." "The second stage of research into this technology was led by William J. Baldygo [who] . . . developed
a rule-based approach to enhance the performance of the aforementioned fusion processor." "Recently, the fruit of this labor
has been applied to medical technology, and to the intelligent transportation system. The impact of this unconventional signal
and data processing technology on Big Data is only beginning to be appreciated."
Strong endorsement letters also clarified the selection:
c

"It is no exaggeration to say that Expert System CFAR has changed the way radar signal and data processing research
and development is conducted worldwide, and the article very nicely describes why." (Professor Hugh Griffiths,
University College London.)

"Dr. Wicks likes to say 'Optimum is not always best.' I say that optimum is best only when you know that you meet
the optimality conditions of the underlying the algorithm. This is nicely explained in the subject article. What a breakthrough in practical engineering research and development by the team of Baldygo and Wicks." (Dr. Joseph Guerci,
Information Systems Laboratories, Inc.)

"Expert System CFAR has changed the way signal and data processing research and development is conducted worldwide, and the way in which technology is fielded." (Dr. Paul Antonik, Chief Scientist of AFLR, Information
Directorate.)

"Expert System CFAR started with a simple statement of fact in the 1980s, 'Optimum is not always best, so let the data
tell you what to do.' I have decades of experience, so, when I speak about the value of this research and the subject
paper on Expert System CFAR, I speak with authority and with intimate knowledge of the process Baldygo and Wicks
pursued." (Dr. Marshall Greenspan, retired and formerly of Northrop Grumman Electronic System.)

I congratulate the authors, and I encourage our readers to look in their Magazine archives to give this one a read.
Best Wishes,
Peter Willett (e-mail: peter.k.willett@gmail.com)
EiC Systems

MARCH 2019

IEEE A&E SYSTEMS MAGAZINE

Aerospace and Electronic Systems - March 2019

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