Loyd Hook, PhD
For the past 15 years I have dedicated myself to advance a vision for safer, more available, and more capable aircraft through increased autonomy. My experience in the field began at NASA Dryden working with the US Air Force (USAF) on the first full version of the F-16 Automatic Ground Collision Avoidance System (Auto GCAS), currently the highest level of autonomy on any production aircraft. Auto GCAS went on to win multiple awards, including the prestigious Collier Trophy, and save many lives and USAF F-16's. The development of Auto GCAS continued as we transitioned the technology to a diverse range of aircraft, including small unmanned and general aviation. From there, I expanded into autonomous recovery controllers for emergency landing, geo-fencing, and aircraft navigation. More recently, I have focused on higher level aspects of advancing autonomy, with major emphasis on regulation, acceptance, and the run-time assurance approach. Aircraft autonomy is my passion and I believe these systems hold the key to a revolution in personal transportation as the skies are opened up to the masses.
2018 - Recipient of the Robert J. Collier Trophy
For the The Automatic Ground Collision Avoidance System (Auto-GCAS) team, which included the Air Force Research Laboratory, Lockheed Martin, the F-35 Joint Program Office, and NASA for lifesaving technology
Walter Weinmann
Walter is a life-long passionate software developer. His aspiration is error free software and solving business problems as efficiently as possible while keeping a keen eye on useability. He is skilled at analysing, translating and decomposing complex system requirements into detailed designs. Working mainly in smaller software companies, he has developed a deep holistic understanding of all aspects of software engineering including how to code, test, correct and document complex programs using robust software engineering processes, standards and tools.
Walter has worked in projects relating to data processing, storing and visualising and has developed and implemented web applications & cloud services using functional and object oriented programming. He has also worked with complex production systems involving big data.
Walter regularly contributes to open source software and is currently supporting IO-Aero on a voluntary basis as a member of the project team. He has a masters degree in Software Development (MSc. Soft Dev) and a bachelor degree in Mathematics (BSc. (Hons) Math). Walter lives and works in Switzerland.