Three senior engineers from General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI) were honoured with awards from the San Diego section of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) in the areas of outstanding aerospace engineering and engineering management.
The awards were presented at an event hosted by the AIAA on June 4, 2022. GA-ASI is a leading employer in the San Diego area and manufacturer of Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) systems, radars, and electro-optic and related mission systems solutions.
Erik Kaas, Darren Moe and Ernest Serrano were the three GA-ASI engineers who were honoured with awards.
“We are extremely proud of the important contributions of Erik, Darren and Ernest,” said GA-ASI President David R. Alexander. “As the world leader in unmanned systems, engineering is the lifeblood of our company. These engineers have helped to pioneer the development of new and innovative technologies that are utilized on our UAS platforms, which are critical to U.S. national security and throughout the world.”
Erik Kaas is senior engineering director for GA-ASI’s SkyGuardian program and was awarded for his outstanding contributions to aerospace engineering. SkyGuardian is GA-ASI’s newest production RPA and will soon be delivered to the UK Royal Air Force (RAF) as the Protector RG Mk1. He has led the engineering team from the early design phase to the first flight of the SkyGuardian prototype through to GA-ASI’s production of the first Protector aircraft, which has paved the way for the first delivery to the RAF as the launch customer for this revolutionary aircraft.
Darren Moe is senior director for Automation, Autonomy and Artificial Intelligence development for GA-ASI and was awarded for his outstanding contribution in aerospace engineering management. He is responsible for managing the ideation, development, and delivery of mission-critical software systems. He and his team developed the first FAA-approved multi-aircraft flight by a medium-altitude, long-endurance UAS and implemented novel Artificial Intelligence-based UAS automation capabilities.
Ernest Serrano is senior engineering director for U.S. Army programs and was also awarded for outstanding contributions to aerospace engineering. He defined a new configuration for the Gray Eagle Extended Range UAS platform to fly Multi-Domain Operations. This configuration included updated avionics, datalinks, sensors and weapons. Mr. Serrano worked with the U.S. Army to define the configuration, and then led the team through a series of flawless flight demonstrations.
Source: Press Release