IEEE Awards Booklet - 2022 - 20

2022 IEEE MEDALS
IEEE Medal of Honor
Sponsored by the IEEE Foundation
Asad M. Madni
For pioneering contributions to the development and commercialization of innovative
sensing and systems technologies, and for distinguished research leadership
From automobiles to airplanes and spacecraft, the sensor innovations
developed by Asad M. Madni have revolutionized navigation
and stability in aerospace and automotive systems, helping to keep
people safe around the world. He led the development and commercialization
of the GyroChip®, resulting in a solid-state 6-degree-of
freedom microelectromechanical system (MEMS) inertial
measurement unit, which required convergence of micromachining,
advanced signal processing, and mixed signal integrated circuit
design to provide orders of magnitude improvement in size/
cost and reliability over prior technologies. It is in use worldwide
in over 90 types of aircraft including the active control electronics
pitch stability control system of the Boeing 777/stretch 777;
as the yaw damper for over 3,000 Boeing 737s; in most business
jets as a sensing element in leading attitude control and reference
programs; and for guidance, navigation, and control in major U.S.
missile, drone, underwater autonomous vehicle, helicopter, and
space programs, including the Mars rover Sojourner and NASA's
AERCam Sprint autonomous robotic camera. It is also used in
the ARCHER airborne hyperspectral imaging system used by the
U.S. Civil Air Patrol in search and rescue and disaster management
missions. Madni's leadership was instrumental in transitioning the
GyroChip®
technology from the aerospace and defense sectors to
the automotive and commercial aviation markets. He led a miniaturization
effort resulting in significant sensor size reduction while
increasing performance and was chief architect for signal processing
techniques. These breakthroughs dramatically reduced the cost
of the GyroChip® and facilitated unprecedented acceptance by
the automotive industry for use in over 80 models of passenger
cars for electronic stability control and rollover protection systems.
His innovations also resulted in performance, reliability, and cost
advantages for MEMS accelerometers; linear/rotary position sensors;
and torque, pressure, and embedded sensors/actuators for the
automotive industry. These technologies and the GyroChip® became
the foundation of vehicle dynamic control and helped realize
the dream of autonomous vehicles through capabilities including
electronic stability control, rollover prevention, lane change
assist, autonomous cruise control, navigation, drowsy-driver detection,
drunk-driver detection, child seat detection, memory seat
sensing, self-maintenance, and other key features without which
autonomous vehicles would not be a reality today.
Madni also led the development of the control system for the
Hubble Space Telescope's Star-Selector, which is still in use today.
It has provided the Hubble with unprecedented pointing accuracy
and stability, resulting in over 1 million truly remarkable images
that have enhanced our understanding of the universe, such
as the discovery of Pluto's moons and the formation of galaxies
thousands of light years away.
Madni made seminal and pioneering contributions in the development
of intelligent systems and instrumentation that signifi cantly
enhanced U.S. combat readiness and provided the Department of
Defense the ability-not possible with prior art-to simulate more
threat representative ECM environments for current and future advanced
warfare training. He also led the development of an adaptive
control system for a minimally invasive endometrial ablation system,
which represented a major advance in the treatment of abnormal
uterine bleeding, a condition known as menorrhagia. The system is
used to eliminate the tissue responsible for menstrual bleeding by endometrial
ablation and allows gynecologists to perform ablation under
direct visualization on an outpatient basis under local anesthesia.
His current research focus is on the development of ultra-high
data throughput and wideband instrumentation for the detection
of rare events, including cancer cells in the bloodstream. He is
also guiding research in the area of demand/response techniques
for smart grid and electric vehicle applications, wearable sensors,
computational sensing, as well as a revolutionary single-shot network
analyzer with orders of magnitude improvement in bandwidth
and data throughput rate.
An IEEE Life Fellow; HKN Eminent Member; member of the
U.S. National Academy of Engineering; and Fellow of the U.S.
National Academy of Inventors, U.K. Royal Academy of Engineering,
and Canadian Academy of Engineering, Madni is a Distinguished
Adjunct Professor and Distinguished Scientist with the
University of California, Los Angeles' Electrical and Computer
Engineering Department, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
Scope: For an exceptional contribution or an extraordinary career in IEEE fields of interest.
20 | 2022 IEEE AWARDS BOOKLET

IEEE Awards Booklet - 2022

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