Shown receiving their Best Paper Award at the 2007 AIAA GNC Conference in Hilton Head, SC this past August are Mark Balas and Susan Frost.

Balas Receives Best Paper Award

September 24, 2007 - The paper “Evolving Systems: A Theoretical Foundation” has been named the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Best Paper from the 2006 Guidance, Navigation, and Control Conference held in Keystone, Colorado. The authors of the paper are Mark Balas and Susan Frost of the University of Wyoming and Fred Hadaegh of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The paper sets forth the theoretical foundation of a new area in aerospace systems research that Dr. Balas has envisioned. Evolving Systems is the autonomous assembly of actively controlled subsystems which self assemble into a new system with a higher purpose that cannot be attained by the subsystem components alone. Applications of this new area include autonomous assembly of structures in space, autonomous rendezvous and docking of spacecraft, and formation flying of reconnaissance satellites. Evolving Systems promises to be a useful paradigm for the modeling of autonomous assembly in space, to facilitate space system upgrades and maintenance, and to leverage existing systems into higher functioning systems.

Dr. Balas is Department Head of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department. He is an AIAA and IEEE Fellow. Susan Frost is a Ph.D. student under the supervision of Dr. Balas. She has a three year NASA Graduate Student Researchers Program Fellowship from Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Dr. Hadaegh is the Manager of the Formation Control Group at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He is an AIAA Fellow, Senior Member of IEEE, and he has received NASA’s Exceptional Service and Exceptional Achievement Medals.