It gives us great pleasure to announce that Professor Prasad has been selected a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics!

Prof. Prasad conducts research in a broad range of research topics in the areas of system identification, system modeling, turbulence and ship airwake modeling and simulation, ground effect modeling, linear and nonlinear control theory applications, adaptive neural nets and fuzzy logic control, active control of compressor flow instabilities, and unmanned and autonomous vehicles. His work on dynamic modeling and control of twin helicopter systems was well recognized by the rotorcraft research community. His team's vibrations and the turbulence simulation methodology has been adapted by the U.S. rotorcraft industry for use in analysis and simulation programs. He has developed a new helicopter wake model to capture the effects from wake bending and wake skew during maneuvering flight, significantly improving the fidelity of rotorcraft simulation models.

Under a NASA project, Prof. Prasad pioneered flight mechanics oriented modeling of on-blade control concepts. These new models have helped the development of advanced controllers for active control of helicopter vibration and noise, paving the way for increased utilization of rotorcraft in the civilian arena.

Dr. Prasad has also developed a strong analytical and experimental research program on modeling and control of flow instabilities associated with compressors used in modern gas turbine engines. He and his team have successfully demonstrated the compressor stability management scheme they developed in full scale compressor rigs, in a full scale engine test rig at GE Aircraft Engines and in a full-scale turboshaft engine test rig at the NASA Glen Research Center. His research work in this area has resulted in three invention disclosures and three patents.

Dr. Prasad is a member of the Editorial Board of the International Journal for Mathematical Modeling of Systems, and Editor-In-Chief of the Journal of the American Helicopter Society. A paper from his research that was presented at the 2006 ASME Turbo Expo Conference received the “Best Paper of the Conference” award from the ASME Instrumentation and Control Committee. He was also awarded the 2009 Melville Medal.