Prof. JVR Prasad

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has recognized AE professor  J.V.R. Prasad, former AE professor Eric Johnson, and AE alumnus Keeryun Kang, PhDAE '12 with the Best Paper Award 2016-2017 for an article they co-authored, " Active Control of a UAV Helicopter with a Slung Load for Precision Airborne Cargo Delivery ."

The honor was officially bestowed during IEEE's 2019 Conference on Control and Autonomy (ICCA), which was held in Edinburgh, Scotland, July 16-19. The trio's scholarship was published in the Journal of Unmanned Systems, where it first gained the attention of award evaluators for the number of citations it garnered. It was one of just two papers to receive an award and a $1,500 prize by the renowned organization.

The Unmanned Systems Best Paper Award recognizes outstanding papers published in the Unmanned Systems and consists of a cash prize up to $3,000, as well as one plaque per paper and a certificate for each author. This year's award was sponsored by Beijing Institute of Technology, China.

Authors of papers published in Unmanned Systems during the two calendar years preceding the year of the award are eligible for the award. Nominated work was judged by an award committee who reviewed its originality, relevance of the application, clarity of exposition, and demonstrated impact on unmanned systems technology.

Prasad commended the commitment of his former doctoral student, Kang, who is now the principal researcher for Korea's Agency for Defense Development. Many of Kang's contributions came in the years after the conclusion of his formal studies at Georgia Tech.

"This paper looks at how to control slung loads for helicopters, particularly delivery operations where supply cargo needs to be delivered to ships or other off-shore platforms," he said. "It is very difficult work, particularly  where the landing platform might not be steady."

Unmanned Systems' Editors-in-Chief, Lihua Xie, Professor Zongli Lin of the University of Virginia, Professor J V R Prasad, and Ben M. Chen accepting the Best Paper (2016-2017) Award