Dr Mark Psiaki receives Kepler award

The Institute of Navigation’s (ION) Satellite Division presented Dr. Mark Psiaki with its Johannes Kepler Award September 24, 2021 during the ION GNSS+ Conference.

 Dr. Psiaki was recognized for setting a standard of rigor, clarity, and thoroughness in addressing key estimation and signal processing problems in PNT.

Dr. Mark Psiaki originated the technique of bit-wise parallel RF signal processing for use in general-purpose processors. This enabler of software-defined GNSS led to the first space deployment of a fully software-defined GNSS receiver on a general-purpose DSP and to the widespread adoption of software-defined GNSS across the aerospace industry.

Additionally, Dr. Psiaki’s real-time software radio expertise enabled the development of a spoofer cultivated in his research group.  Dr. Psiaki subsequently led the development of spoofing detection algorithms based on cross-correlation of unknown P(Y) codes and based on direction-of-arrival sensing.

Dr. Psiaki was the lead signal processing designer/analyst for the iGPS program that combined Iridium L-band downlink signals, GPS signals, and INS data to enhance GPS anti-jam capabilities.  Recent work on LEO-based navigation fuses observables from an existing global communications constellation with INS and other sensor data to provide a back-up to GPS.  Another contribution demonstrates how Doppler-based navigation could replace pseudorange-based navigation if implemented using a large LEO constellation.

Dr. Psiaki has made many contributions to the practice of modeling, estimation, and detection applied to GNSS, including the study of GNSS carrier phase modeling for space-based applications.  His campaign to decode the GIOVA-A L1 BOC(1,1) PRN codes enabled Galileo receiver manufacturers to test their systems before the ESA published the codes.  His group’s work on ionospheric scintillations led to the first commercially-available scintillation simulators.