Over the past 44 years, the Kalman Filter has been applied in such diverse areas as navigation, missile and aircraft control, fire control systems, image and speech recognition, production line controls, biometrics and to virtually any problem involving control within a noisy data environment. With more than 1.8 million applications to date, Dr. Kalman’s innovation is one of history’s most far-reaching contributions to modern engineering practice.
The Draper Prize consists of a gold medallion, a hand-lettered certificate and a $500,000 cash award. The prize is endowed by the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Inc. of Cambridge, Mass., a pioneering nonprofit laboratory engaged in applied research, engineering development, education and technology transfer.

For more information about the NAE Awards – and to submit your nominations for the 2009 Charles Stark Draper, Bernard M. Gordon and Fritz J. and Dolores H. Russ Prizes – click here.