Dr. Vladislav Gavrilets is one of 'Top 100 Young Innovators'

A recent hire at Athena Technologies, Vladislav Gavrilets, PhD, has been identified by Technology Review Magazine as one of their annual Top 100 Young Innovators.

Each year, in an effort to capture the future of technology, MIT’s Technology Review selects 100 young (35 and under) innovators in a wide range of technological areas. Collectively known as the TR100, the group was inducted during The Emerging Technologies Conference held at MIT on September 24 and 25.

According to the October issue of the magazine, "We combed through the rosters of universities, companies, national laboratories, and other R&D outfits around the globe to find 100 of today’s most exciting young innovators: the lab dwellers, visionaries, and dealmakers whose work will utterly transform our world in the years to come."

Heli-UAV Performs Computerized Aerobatic Routine

Gavrilets was selected as a result of his doctoral research at MIT that demonstrated autonomous aerobatic maneuvers with a miniature helicopter. "The main idea in my research was to figure out how R/C [remote control] pilots perform aerobatic maneuvers, then develop a mathematical model of the pilot’s strategies, which was then implemented on a computer," explained Gavrilets. Having done so successfully, Gavrilets was able to implement an autopilot that demonstrated a number of aerobatic maneuvers on a fully autonomous basis for the first time ever. These maneuvers were combined in a fully autonomous air show sequence which was recently demonstrated by a one-and-a-half meter long unmanned helicopter.

Gavrilets, a two-time junior chess champion from Kyrgyzstan, received his Ph.D. in Aeronautics and Astronautics from MIT in June 2003. He then joined Athena Technologies where he is now Manager of Control Systems Development.

[photo courtesy Technology Review --ed.]

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