July 2007 Issue
THE SUMMIT SERIES
Sing a Song of Satellites
When he was young, the mind of Dr. Gérard Lachapelle, P.Eng., was always on the technological world opening up before him — and never, his music teacher once said, on the words of the songs he sang.
BY FRANCINE MAXWELL
The PEGG
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A GPS FINE-TUNER - Dr. Gerard Lachapelle, P.Eng., works on ways to make GPS systems work better and for more industries. His dedication to the science has garnered him many awards and accolades С including an earlier Summit Award, the Frank Spragins Technical Award, in 2000. |
What started out as a keen childhood interest in technology has led Dr. Gerard Lachapelle, P.Eng., to some way-out-there projects.
“From very early on, technology was an important interest to me. We were at the start of a technological revolution and I felt contribution was key,” says Dr. Lachapel.
“In fact I had a music teacher tell me when I was young that maybe I should hum and not sing with the others Р because my mind was so focused on the emerging technology, I was not paying attention to the songs.”
Dr. Lachapelle speaks of an era when microwave ovens didn’t exist, DVDs were unheard of, and even the idea of global positioning systems bizarre. Humankind hadn’t even walked on the moon yet. The late 1950s provided the world with some exciting possibilities, and a young Dr. Lachapelle was all too eager to get involved with everything he could get his hands on.
The Canada Research Chair/iCORE Chair in wireless location, Dr. Lachapelle is best known in his technology community for his work with global positioning systems. He has more than 25 years of GPS experience, he’s counselled countless students and won a plethora of awards.
It seems only right that he’d win a Summit Award. And he has. Twice.
The latest one for Dr. Lachapelle’s shelf is the 2007 Alberta Ingenuity Fund Research Excellence Summit Award.
After graduating from Quebec City’s Laval University in 1971, Dr. Lachapelle
felt he’d only absorbed the basics of engineering education. Deciding to
combine his interest in technology with a desire to learn other cultures, he
attended graduate schools at Oxford, the University of Helsinki, and the Technical
University at Graz in Austria. His first job after completing his studies introduced
him to GPS.
“I worked in Ottawa for five years after graduating and this is where I
heard about GPS. The technology was relatively new then in 1980. I heard about
this company in Calgary that was working with GPS, so I moved. That was 27 years
ago,” says Dr. Lachapelle.
“We are currently 25 people,
and this award helps promote us and attract more graduate students. It is important
for students to see this kind of recognition. It gives them something to strive
for themselves and makes them want to be better. That will result in higher demand
for studies in our area.
DR. GERARD LACHAPELLE, P.ENG.
At the time, he also liked the idea of moving close to the mountains. Little did he know that his fascination with GPS technology and making systems work better would see him become a double Summit Award winner, a winner of several teaching excellence awards, the recipient of honorary professorships in two foreign countries, and the co-holder of more than 10 patents and licences regarding GPS.
“I didn’t create GPS, but I work to make sure that it gets better and that it is applicable to more industries. I create or help to create software and innovations that make GPS work better,” says Dr. Lachapelle.
Many consumers think of GPS as that voice from their dashboard, telling them to turn left at the next corner. But Dr. Lachapelle explains that there is much, much more that GPS can do.
“I began this nearly 30 years ago. I’ve developed new technologies to get better performance from systems to use in more areas of application. I’ve spent time to develop algorithms and software to get better performance from increasingly better and more sophisticated systems.
“Performances have affected the entire petroleum industry, environmental
protection, forestry, navigation, military and even agriculture sectors. We’ve
gone from outdoor capabilities to indoor.”
Dr. Lachapelle is excited at the prospects for GPS and his innovations, particularly
for the agricultural industries, which are not traditional GPS users.
“It would promote precision farming. The farmer can use GPS to get better yields from his crops, cattle location, livestock tracking. Imagine that: we can track every cow born in Canada from birth to death. Where it was born, where it has been eating, what animals it has been in contact with.
“The impact a system like that would have had on the BSE crisis would have been huge. We could ultimately limit the impact of such an outbreak in future,” says Dr. Lachapelle.
“In crops, the farmer can use the GPS to measure every square metre of land for yield, and can therefore eliminate poor areas or fertilize them accordingly.”
For all his enthusiasm and accomplishments, Dr. Lachapelle is a humble scientist. While honoured to have won this award, as recognition for his efforts so far, he thinks the award has a much more far-reaching connotation to it.
“I view this as an award for my past and current group of researchers. We are currently 25 people, and this award helps promote us and attract more graduate students. It is important for students to see this kind of recognition. It gives them something to strive for themselves and makes them want to be better. That will result in higher demand for studies in our area.”
Singing may not have been Dr. Lachapelle’s forte, but his career and his enthusiasm for technology have been humming along just fine. And that’s music to all our ears.
The Alberta Ingenuity Fund Research Excellence Award recognizes professionals in academia or industry who have conducted innovative research in engineering, geology or geophysics. The technology must have been successfully applied to improve the public’s economic and social well-being.