A Surrey engineer wins top space navigation award
Tuesday 21 February 2012
Dr Martin Unwin has been honoured for his work in Surrey with a leading award for his research and work in the field of GPS navigation in space.
Martin, who works at the world’s leading small satellite firm SSTL, has a long history of collaboration with the Surrey Space Centre at the University of Surrey where he completed his PhD.
He has been awarded the 2011 Tycho Brahe prize for contributions towards space navigation, guidance and control. The prize was awarded at the International Technical Meeting of the Institute of Navigation in Newport Beach, California.
Martin’s award recognizes his pioneering work in the development of low-cost GNSS receiver technology for space-borne navigation and remote sensing.
In his acceptance speech, Martin said: "I am honoured, privileged and grateful for the award. My achievements are in a large part due to being in right place at the right time surrounded by the right people.
“From when I started my PhD, begging for a Trimble receiver to put on PoSat, SSTL has grown 20 fold, and now building the European version of GPS and we are selling space receivers across the world.
“I would like to thank Sir Martin Sweeting, the University of Surrey, all the support from SSTL, especially those who had worked with me on space GNSS, and my family.”
He received the award from Dr Todd Walter, President of the Institute of Navigation.
Martin started as a Surrey Space Centre CASE PhD student back in 1991 pioneering the GPS-based autonomous navigation on the University’s PoSAT-1 microsatellite which was launched in 1993.
Employed by SSTL in 1995, Martin led the GNSS team for many years. His successes included the design of the Space GPS Receiver series which first demonstrated the feasibility of using commercially available receiver technology in space, and the flight demonstration of GPS-based attitude determination on UoSAT-12 in 1999.
In 2003, Martin was also involved in pioneering work to record ocean surface state using reflected GPS signals from the Disaster Monitoring Constellation. This led to the development of the SGR-ReSI (remote sensing instrument), the team’s latest product, that will fly as part of the Maritime suite on the UK’s TechDemoSat-1 satellite.
He also made significant contributions to a GPS experiment and a signal generator flying on the first European GNSS test satellite, GIOVE-A, and is now a Principal Engineer in the GNSS Receivers Team.
Dr Unwin commented: “Following my own PhD studentship, our GNSS team has gone on to host eight successive University of Surrey PhD students on placement within SSTL, four of whom have subsequently been employed by SSTL.
“Many of our pioneering achievements and commercial successes have only been possible as a result of the active research relationship between SSTL and the Surrey Space Centre.”
Sir Martin Sweeting, Director of the Surrey Space Centre and Executive Chairman of SSTL, said: "Martin’s work is a great example of the the powerful synergy of academic research and commercial exploitation that is at the heart of Surrey's approach to changing the economics of space. His award is very well-deserved and we are all proud of his achievements.”
ENDS
Notes to Editors:
The Annual Awards Program is sponsored by the Institute of Navigation to recognise individuals making significant contributions, or demonstrating outstanding performance, relating to the art and science of navigation.
The Tycho Brahe Award is given in memory or Mary Tornich Janislawski, developer of the Mark II Plotter, a charter member of the ION, the first woman to have received an ION Annual Award for the advancement of navigation. She was a teacher at Berkeley and Stanford and also an author.