The Pioneer Award is selected by the Professional Group on Aeronautical and Navigational Electronics and has been given out annually since 1949. The Pioneer Award is awarded to an individual or team for significant contributions of interest to the IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Society. To ensure proper historical perspective, the award is given for contributions that have been made at least twenty years prior to the award year.[1]
| Year | Recipient(s) | Contribution |
|---|---|---|
| 1949 | Thomas C. Rives | Leadership in the development of aircraft electronics |
| 1950 | L. M. Clements | Electronic Countermeasures |
| 1951 | Harold M. McClelland | “Highways in the Sky”–The forerunner of today's ATC |
| 1952 | A. Hoyt Taylor | Use of radio waves for detection of ship traffic (circa 1922) |
| 1953 | David G. C. Luck | Radio direction-finding for aircraft and the omnidirectional range |
| 1954 | Francis W. Dunmore | Replacement of radio batteries by AC; radio aids to marine and air navigation; blind landing system (today’s ILS) |
| 1955 | Lewis M. Hull | Wave propagation to/from aircraft; the Kolster localizer system |
| 1956 | Alfred W. Marriner & Wallace G. Smith | Development facilities for aircraft communications, navigation and traffic control including AACS |
| 1956 | Harry Diamond (P) | Radio aids to navigation; radio range; direction finding; instrumented low approach |
| 1956 | Wayne G. Eaton (P) | Ground and airborne radio equipment |
| 1956 | John W. Greig (P) | Automatic phase comparison direction finding |
| 1956 | Thorp Hiscock (P) | Two-way voice radio for aircraft |
| 1956 | Frederick A. Kolster (P) | Marine radio direction finding; radio compass |
| 1956 | William H. Murphy (P) | Airborne antennas and radio range systems |
| 1956 | John Stone (P) | Radio direction finding (circa 1900) |
| 1957 | Lawrence A. Hyland | Direction finding, altimetry, ignition shielding, and radar |
| 1957 | Alessandro Artom (P) | Directional properties of radio transmission and reception (circa 1905) |
| 1958 | Albert F. Hegenberger & Clayton C. Shangraw | Four-course radio range beacon |
| 1958 | Malcolm P. Hanson (P) | Arctic, Antarctic and transatlantic flight radio communication |
| 1959 | Henri G. Busignies & Francis L. Moseley | Aircraft automatic radio direction finding |
| 1960 | John H. Dellinger | Aircraft approach and landing electronics |
| 1960 | Wilbur L. Webb (P) | Visual “L—R” radio compass |
| 1961 | John Alvin Pierce | Radio navigation systems: Loran, Skywave, RaduX, Omega |
| 1962 | Donald M. Stuart | VHF omni-range (VOR) |
| 1963 | Luis W. Alvarez | Aircraft approach and landing radar |
| 1964 | Ernst Ludwig Kramar | Sonne (Consol) and other instrument landing systems (ILS) |
| 1965 | Andrew Alford | VOR & ILS navigation antennas; the Alford Loop |
| 1966 | Robert J. Dippy | Hyperbolic radio navigation (GEE and LORAN) |
| 1966 | Otto Scheller (P) | The radio range (circa 1907) |
| 1967 | Lloyd Espenschied & Russell C. Newhouse | Frequency modulated radio altimeters |
| 1968 | William J. Tull | Aircraft ground speed using Doppler |
| 1969 | William J. O’Brien & Harvey F. Schwarz | DECCA (hyperbolic) navigation |
| 1970 | Paul G. Hansel | Doppler VOR |
| 1971 | Robert L. Frank & Winslow Palmer | LORAN-C navigation |
| 1972 | Myron H. Nichols | Time-division multiplex telemetry |
| 1973 | Frederic Calland Williams | Secondary radar beacon design |
| 1973 | Bertram Vivian Bowden | Secondary radar system development |
| 1973 | Kenneth Ernest Harris (P) | Air traffic control secondary radar |
| 1974 | George B. Litchford & Joseph Lyman | Precision omnidirectional microwave beacons |
| 1975 | Ivan A. Getting | Microwave radar |
| 1976 | Spencer Kellogg II | Zero reader flight display |
| 1977 | Robert M. Page | Monostatic radar |
| 1978 | Charles S. Draper | Inertial technology |
| 1979 | Peter R. Murray | Pilotless aircraft |
| 1980 | Sven H. Dodington | Distance measuring equipment |
| 1981 | Louis A. deRosa (P), Mortimer Rogoff, Paul E. Green, Jr. & Wilbur B. Davenport, Jr. | Spread-spectrum communications |
| 1982 | Arthur A. Collins | Voice and data radio communications and electronics |
| 1983 | Allan Ashley, Joseph E. Herrmann & James S. Perry | Voice and data radio communications and electronics[2] |
| 1984 | Leroy C. Perkins, Harry B. Smith & David H. Mooney | High-repetition-rate airborne pulse-doppler radar |
| 1985 | Carl A. Wiley | Synthetic-aperture radar |
| 1986 | William H. Guier, George C. Weiffenbach, Richard B. Kershner (P), & Frank T. McClure (P) | Transit satellite navigation |
| 1987 | Rudolph A. Stampfl & Peter H. Werenfels | Weather satellite automatic picture transmission |
| 1988 | Charles E. Cook & William M. Siebert | Radar pulse compression |
| 1989 | Frederick H. Battle, Jr., Abraham Tatz & Joseph E. Woodward | Microwave landing systems |
| 1990 | Jay W. Forrester & Robert R. Everett | The Whirlwind computer |
| 1991 | Fred M. Staudaher, Melvin Labitt & Frank R. Dickey, Jr. | Airborne moving-target radars |
| 1992 | William C. Eppers | Laser systems |
| 1993 | William F. Bahret | Stealth technology |
| 1994 | Bradford W. Parkinson | Global Positioning System (GPS) |
| 1995 | Robert E. Cowdery & William A. Skillman | Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) |
| 1996 | Richard B. Marsten | Direct Broadcast Satellites |
| 1997 | John H. Bryant (P), James Cheal & Vincent J. McHenry | Subminiature Type A (SMA RF) Coaxial connectors |
| 1998 | John N. Entzminger, Charles A. Fowler & William J. Kenneally | Concepts, ideas & designs leading to JointSTARS |
| 1999 | Tom M. Hyltin & Britton T. Vincent, Jr. | Monolithic microwave integrated circuits & solid-state phased array radar |
| 2000 | Herbert G. Weiss | Space Surveillance Radar Development |
| 2001 | Milton E. Radant | Airborne Radar Signal Processing |
| 2002 | Joseph A. Meyer | Conceptualization of the Personal Tracking System (PTS) |
| 2003 | Russel Boario ; William Brown; Jack L. Walker | |
| 2004 | Erwin C. Gangl | For development of MIL-STD-1553: Multiplexed Data Bus Avionic Intra-System Communication Standard |
| 2005 | Charles Edward Muehe | For the invention of the Moving Target Detector (MTD) digital signal processor for aircraft surveillance radar |
| 2006 | William Fishbein | For developing the fundamental concepts, system designs, and basic technology underpinning the design, development, testing, and fielding of the U.S. Army Firefinder family of radars |
| 2007 | George M. Kirkpatrick | For the original development of monopulse techniques for radar systems |
| 2008 | Robert D. Briskman | For development of Commercial and Broadcast Satellites Over the Past 40 Years. |
| 2009 | Yakov D. Shirman | For the independent discovery of matched filtering, adaptive filtering, and high-resolution pulse compression for an entire generation of Russian and Ukrainian radars. |
| 2010 | Daniel A. Tazartes | For Pioneering Contributions to the Development of Strapdown Inertial Instruments |
| 2011 | James V. Leonard | For Pioneering Work in the Field of Aircraft/Missile Launch Systems |
| 2012 | Asad M. Madni | For Seminal and Pioneering Contributions to the Development and Commercialization of Aerospace Electronic Systems |
| 2013 | George Lutes and Kam Lau | For Enabling NASA’s Deep Space Communications and Radar Imaging System via Ultra-Stable Frequency/Timing Fiber Optic Transfer |
| 2014 | John Hines | For contributions in the development and deployment of the Very High Speed Integrated Circuits Hardware Description Language (VHDL) |
| 2015 | Yakov S. Shifrin | Founding Contributions to Modern Radio Physics and Statistical Antenna Theory (SAT) |
| 2016 | William J. Baldygo and Michael C. Wicks | Algorithm Development, Experimental Demonstration, and Transition of Expert System Constant False Alarm Rate (CFAR) to Airborne Radar Systems |
| 2017 | Paul Antonik and Gerard T. Capraro | Modeling, Simulation Analysis, Design of a Real-Time Expert System Constant False and Alarm Rate (CFAR) |
| 2018 | James J. Spilker | For Contributions to the Technology and Implementation of the GPS Civilian Navigation System. |
| 2019 | Azad M. Madni | For contributions to advanced simulation-based training and intelligent decision aiding for aerospace systems. |
| 2020 | Alfonso Farina | For pioneering contributions to the analysis, design, development, and experimentation of digital-based adaptive radar systems. |
(P) denotes posthumous award.