The Cockrell School of Engineering and the Student Engineering Council (SEC) presented Dr. Todd Humphreys with the 2015 Outstanding Faculty Award for the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics on April 30th, 2015. Awardees are selected within each department by the SEC on the basis of nominations from undergraduate students. The Radionavigation Lab’s Deep Mukherji presented Dr. Humphreys with the award at the annual SEC awards banquet.
Spotlight
Apple acquires Coherent Navigation, May 2015
Apple confirmed on May 16, 2015 that they have acquired the startup Coherent Navigation, which Dr. Humphreys co-founded in 2008 together with Clark Cohen (CEO at founding), Bill Bencze (VP of Engineering), Brent Ledvina (VP of Business Development), Mark Psiaki, and Mike Eglington. Dr. Humphreys left Coherent Navigation in 2009 to join the faculty of the University of Texas at Austin, but continued to collaborate as a private consultant and sub-contractor until the acquisition. Congratulations to the Coherent Navigation team for their hard work over the years — especially to Brent Ledvina and Bill Bencze, the two co-founders who shepherded the venture all the way through acquisition. Congratulations also to other key players: Paul Lego (CEO of Coherent Navigation at the time of acquisition), Isaac Miller (CTO of Coherent Navigation), and Rob Brumley (COO of Coherent Navigation). Never in recent memory has there been assembled such a concentration of position, navigation, and timing expertise in a single startup as in Coherent Navigation.
The acquisition was covered by MacRumors, the New York Times, and other news agencies.
IEEE Spectrum: Cheap Centimeter-Precision GPS For Cars, Drones, Virtual Reality, May 2015
“Engineers at the University of Texas at Austin have now made a small, cheap GPS system for mobile devices that gives centimeter-precision positioning accuracy. Such centimeter precision could let drones deliver packages to your porch, autonomous vehicles navigate safely, and be used in precision farming. It could also allow for some neat virtual reality tricks and games if coupled with a smartphone camera.
Continue reading the IEEE Spectrum article, which features an interview with Dr. Humphreys.
UT: New Centimeter-Accurate GPS System Could Transform Virtual Reality and Mobile Devices, May 2015
“AUSTIN, Texas—Researchers in the Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin have developed a centimeter-accurate GPS-based positioning system that could revolutionize geolocation on virtual reality headsets, cellphones and other technologies, making global positioning and orientation far more precise than what is currently available on a mobile device.
Continue reading the UT press release, which features an interview with Dr. Humphreys.
KUT: How GPS Technology Could Help Scientists Build a Holodeck, May 2015
“AUSTIN – If you use your smartphone for directions, you know how annoying it can be when the tracking device gets your locations wrong. Now a team of researchers at the University of Texas’ Cockrell School of Engineering say they may have fixed that problem. But there’s more: They also think they’ve brought a science fiction dream closer to reality. In the space adventure series Star Trek canon, the holodeck was a room where the characters could create virtual worlds and interact within them.
Continue reading the KUT article, which features an interview with Dr. Humphreys.
KVUE: University of Texas team changing how we use GPS, May 2015
“AUSTIN – In this Tech Tuesday, a tool we use all the time is getting better and it’s all thanks to research at the University of Texas. “We use GPS in a variety of ways including getting around, but the University of Texas is about to make GPS systems much more valuable. ‘We have developed a way to get low-cost, very precise locations, centimeter precise locations,’ said Todd Humphreys, Assistant Professor, Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics at the University of Texas.
Continue reading the KVUE article, which features an interview with Dr. Humphreys.
Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx visits UT Austin, April 2015
U.S. Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx was hosted by the Radionavigation Lab and other members of WNCG and CTR for a discussion on the future of transportation. The discussion covered secure perception for autonomous systems and also centimeter-accurate low-cost positioning for intelligent transportation systems and for virtual reality.
Read more about Secretary Foxx’s visit in a WNCG article.
AP: After Alps crash, some experts ponder flights without pilots, April 2015
“NEW YORK (AP) — To improve airline safety, maybe we need to remove the pilots.
“That radical idea is decades away, if it ever becomes a reality. But following the intentional crashing of Germanwings Flight 9525 by the co-pilot, a long-running debate over autonomous jets is resurfacing. At the very least, some have suggested allowing authorities on the ground to take control of a plane if there is a rogue pilot in the cockpit.
Continue reading the AP article, which features an interview with Dr. Humphreys.
Todd Humphreys Receives NSF CAREER Award, March 2015
Dr. Humphreys has been selected to receive the NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award to study “Secure Perception for Autonomous Systems.”
The award was announced in a press release from the Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics Department at UT-Austin. View the NSF’s summary of all the 2015 recipients of the CAREER award.
Dr. Humphreys Testifies on Drone Security Issues at Hearing before House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Oversight and Management Efficiency, March 2015
Dr. Humphreys testified at a hearing of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Oversight and Management Efficiency, titled “Unmanned Aerial System Threats: Exploring Security Implications and Mitigation Technologies,” on March 18, 2015. View the oral and written testimony at the website of the Committee. The full video is accessed from the upper right hand corner of the page.
The hearing was discussed in a CNN article and an Inside Unmanned Aerial Systems article. Dr. Humphreys authored an op-ed in the Star-Telegram on the same subject.
