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2010 Technical Excellence Award Recipients
Dr. David J. Ebel
For his nationally recognized leadership in systems analysis to support the Department of Defense and for his use of detailed modeling, test data analysis, and a broad system perspective to provide superb analysis for air vehicle survivability, electronic warfare, and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance systems.
Dr. David Ebel is Associate Leader of the Systems and Analysis Group at MIT Lincoln Laboratory. Since joining the Laboratory in 1985, he has been an active member of the U.S. Air Force Red Team, a collaboration of more than 30 years between the Air Force and Lincoln Laboratory. The Red Team provides independent analysis of air vehicle survivability and air defense technologies to Air Force and Department of Defense senior leaders. Red Team studies and recommendations have had an impact on nearly every major Air Force acquisition program.
Dr. Ebel has evaluated air defense concepts that leverage diverse sensing modalities from conventional radar, electro-optic, and infrared systems to unconventional systems based on acoustic, seismic, gravimetric, and cosmic ray sensors. He has expertise in radar signal processing, electromagnetic modeling, radar propagation, missile and aircraft aerodynamics, and the impact of engineering advances in these fields on the development of countermeasures and counter-countermeasures to air defense systems. Dr. Ebel has led after-action studies of Air Force aircraft employment, working closely with operational units and industry, and he has seen several Red Team study recommendations transition to Air Force programs.
In addition to his Red Team work, Dr. Ebel recently led a Laboratory study investigating the impacts of wind farms on air route surveillance radars. Lincoln Laboratory is currently working with the Federal Aviation Administration to implement the study recommendations. Dr. Ebel has served on the Defense Science Board on the Patriot missile system, and he is currently serving on the board of the Laboratory's New Technology Initiatives Program. He holds a BS degree in physics from Iowa State University and a PhD in mathematics from the University of Wisconsin.
Dr. William D. Ross
For critical contributions in the development of advanced imaging systems with applications in wide-area persistent surveillance, remote sensing, and homeland security, and in the development of enabling video sensor, processing, and data exploitation technologies.
Dr. William D. Ross is the Leader of the Advanced Electro-Optical Systems Group at MIT Lincoln Laboratory. The group develops advanced imaging systems and enabling technologies for electro-optical and infrared sensing with applications in several Laboratory mission areas. These include wide-area persistent surveillance from airborne and ground-based platforms. New technology developments include novel high-pixel-count motion imaging sensors, as well as innovative processing architectures, algorithms, and analysis tools to enable exploitation and dissemination. Working prototypes and deployed systems have demonstrated successful applications in counterterrorism and homeland security.
After joining the Laboratory in 1998, Bill worked on image processing algorithms and exploitation software solutions for remote sensing. In his early work, he developed pattern recognition and search algorithms to support analysts in the exploitation of imagery. These algorithms were applied to wide-area multispectral and hyperspectral imagery. He also developed three-dimensional fusion algorithms for wide-area remote sensing to support interactive multiresolution scene fly-throughs and bandwidth-constrained data browsing. As this area began to find application in commercial systems, Bill shifted the focus of his development work from image-based processing algorithms to novel real-time motion imaging systems characterized by a close integration of innovative sensor and processing solutions that enabled new and significantly improved capabilities.
Over the past 10 years, Bill has led the development of a number of innovative imaging system prototypes, such as a robotic vision-based navigation system for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Overlook system for very-low-power remote video, and a set of wide-area persistent surveillance technologies and systems, including the Advanced Persistent Image eXploitation processing systems and the Constant Hawk Advanced Mobile Processor. Recently, he has concentrated on the development of gigapixel-class motion imaging systems, such as the Multi-Aperture Sparse Imager Video System, the Wide-area Infrared System for Persistent Surveillance, and the Imaging System for Immersive Surveillance.
Bill has presented numerous invited talks and has advised on the development of a number of next-generation counterterrorism and homeland security programs. He holds a BSEE degree from Cornell University and MS and PhD degrees from Boston University.
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