About Michael

Michael Braasch is the Thomas Professor of Electrical Engineering and is a principal investigator with the Avionics Engineering Center (AEC) at Ohio University. He received his B.S.E.E. in 1988, M.S.E.E. in 1989 and Ph.D. in 1992, all from the Ohio University. He has been involved in aviation navigation system research with the AEC since 1985 and has worked on a wide variety of navigation systems including DME, GPS, ILS, INS, Loran-C, MLS, VOR and integrated navigation systems (e.g., GPS/INS). He has served as a technical advisor both to the U.S. FAA and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).

Michael is internationally recognized for his work in characterizing the effects of multipath (e.g., unwanted signal reflections) in GPS. In addition, Michael led the research group in the mid 1990s that pioneered the GPS software-defined receiver. He has also performed research in cockpit display design as well as research in the operation of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs, commonly referred to as ‘drones’). Michael also has extensive flight testing experience with Ohio University’s fleet of research aircraft (e.g., PA-32 Piper Saratoga, Douglas DC-3, AeroVodochody L-29 Delfin). Outside of the academic arena, Michael is frequently called upon to serve as an expert witness in litigation matters related to navigation in general and GPS in particular.

In 1996, Michael co-founded GPSoft LLC, a software company specializing in navigation-related toolboxes for the Matlab ® technical computing environment. The ‘toolboxes’ consist of collections of functions written in the Matlab ® language. GPSoft’s toolboxes, the SatNav toolbox, the Inertial Navigation System toolbox and the Navigation System Integration and Kalman Filtering toolbox are in use by industrial, governmental and academic labs around the world.

Michael has served as a visiting scientist at the Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands and has lectured for NATO AGARD. He has authored book chapters in the area of GPS in addition to numerous conference papers and journal articles. He is a Fellow of the U.S. Institute of Navigation, a Senior Member of the IEEE, a licensed professional engineer in the State of Ohio and is an instrument-rated commercial pilot.