First-Time Presenters Gain Chance to Share Findings With Fellow Aerospace Research

The Vertical Flight Society has announced the 2022 Lichten Award Winners with a special focus on Technical Excellence from First-Time Technical Paper Presenters. 

The overall Lichten winner was Sikorsky's Timothy Schmidt, who took top billing for his work entitled “Automated Optical Rotor Blade Tip Clearance Tracking Using Artificial Intelligence Algorithms". It will be presented to the Society during the Test & Evaluation I session. Schmidt was also the winner of the Society's Southern US Region Lichten Competition. 

The runner-up was Federico Pellegrino of Leonardo Helicopters, selected as the Lichten Runner-up for his paper “High-Fidelity Modelling of Actuation Systems for Nonlinear Aeroservolastic Analysis of Tiltrotor". He will present to the Society at the Dynamics I technical session. His entrance gained him the position as Lichten winner for the European and African Region. 

Additional finalists and regional winners include researchers from Sikorsky, Pennsylvania State, and Texas A&M University, with technical papers regarding virtual reality design in desktop computers, cyclocopter design and development, and acoustic damage detection for bonded composites. 

The Robert L. Lichten Award was established to encourage members of the Vertical Flight Society who may not have presented the results of their work at a prior technical meeting at the local or regional meeting. Each of the world's 10 regions is eligible to select a technical paper at the forum and receives complimentary travel, a small cash honorarium, and a certificate to commemorate their work. Lichten was the 22nd VFS president, and a longtime champion of tiltwing and tiltrotor concept. The above winners will address the Society on May 11, with a variety of sessions suited to the technical area of their work. 

FMI: www.vtol.org