Yaakov Bar-Shalom
{{Short description|Electrical engineer}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name = Yaakov Bar-Shalom
| native_name = יעקב בר-שלום
| native_name_lang = he
| image = 20171012barshalomstorrs.jpg
| birth_name = Jakob Friedman
| birth_date = {{Birth date |1941|05|11|}}
| birth_place = Timișoara, Romania
| nationality = American
| fields = Estimation
Target Tracking
| alma_mater = Technion, Princeton University
| work_institution = University of Connecticut
| awards = ISIF Award for a Lifetime of Excellence in Information Fusion {{small|(2015)}}
Connecticut Medal of Technology {{small|(2012)}}
IEEE Dennis J. Picard Medal for Radar Technologies and Applications {{small|(2008)}}
}}
Yaakov Bar-Shalom ({{Langx|he|יעקב בר-שלום}}; born May 11, 1941) is an Israeli-American electrical engineer and academic in the field of target tracking. He is widely recognized for his contributions to tracking algorithms, notably the development of filters for tracking targets in cluttered environments and the interacting multiple model (IMM) approach for tracking maneuvering targets. These innovations have been adopted in both defense and commercial systems, including Raytheon's THAAD radar.{{Cite journal
| last = Willett
| first = Peter K.
| title = The workshop on estimation, tracking and fusion: a tribute to Yaakov Bar-Shalom
| journal = IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine
| volume = 17
| issue = 3
| pages = 28–33
| date = March 2002
| doi = 10.1109/62.990351
| url = https://doi.org/10.1109/62.990351
| publisher = IEEE
| url-access = subscription
}} He has been described as a "chief architect of probability-based methods for estimating the paths of moving objects."{{cite web|url=https://ctcase.org/member/yaakov-bar-shalom/ |title=Yaakov Bar-Shalom|website=Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering|access-date=3 May 2025}}
Early life and education
Yaakov Bar-Shalom was born in Timișoara, Romania, into a Hungarian-speaking Jewish family in 1941.
{{Cite journal
| last = Willett
| first = Peter
| title = Interview With Professor Yaakov Bar-Shalom
| journal = IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine
| volume = 37
| issue = 8
| pages = 51–55
| date = 1 August 2022
| publisher = IEEE
| doi = 10.1109/MAES.2022.3170002
| url = https://doi.org/10.1109/MAES.2022.3170002
| url-access= subscription
}}
His father was an antique dealer and later an accountant, while his mother raised him and his sister, who became a psychologist.{{Cite conference
| last1 = Dezert
| first1 = Jean
| title = Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Professor Bar-Shalom
| conference = Workshop on Estimation, Tracking and Fusion: A Tribute to Yaakov Bar-Shalom
| location = Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA, USA
| date = 17 May 2001
| url = https://www.onera.fr/sites/default/files/u523/B002-Dezert-CoursENSTA2003Paris.pdf
| format = PDF
| access-date = 3 May 2025
}} He began his university studies at the Bucharest Polytechnic Institute, where he was influenced by Professor Remus Răduleț. In 1960, he emigrated to Israel with his family at the age of nineteen.
After a brief period working in a factory, he continued his education at the Technion in Haifa, where he earned both his bachelor's and master's degrees in electrical engineering. While continuing his education, he also served as an engineer in the IDF Signal Corps. Leaving Israel in 1967, Bar-Shalom pursued his Ph.D. in electrical engineering at Princeton under Stuart Schwartz. He received the degree in 1970 with a dissertation in control theory.{{Cite thesis
| last = Bar-Shalom
| first = Yaakov
| title = Identification and Estimation in Linear Discrete-Time Systems with Unknown Parameters
| publisher = Princeton University
| date = 1970
| type = Ph.D. thesis
}}
Professional career
After his PhD, Bar-Shalom worked at Systems Control Inc. in Palo Alto, CA, lecturing part-time at the University of Santa Clara. Although his PhD field was control, his private sector work pivoted to tracking, resulting in a paper on PDAF that launched his academic career.{{Cite journal
| last1 = Bar-Shalom
| first1 = Yaakov
| last2 = Tse
| first2 = Edison
| title = Tracking in a cluttered environment with probabilistic data association
| journal = Automatica
| volume = 11
| issue = 5
| pages = 451–460
| date = 1975
| doi = 10.1016/0005-1098(75)90021-7
| url = https://doi.org/10.1016/0005-1098(75)90021-7
| url-access= subscription
}}
He became a professor at the University of Connecticut's electrical engineering department in 1976. From 1982 to 1984, he was a visiting professor at Stanford and Naval Postgraduate School.
Currently, Yaakov Bar-Shalom is a Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering and the Marianne E. Klewin Professor in Engineering in University of Connecticut. Bar-Shalom's research has focused on dynamic estimation and target tracking in the presence of measurement-origin uncertainty (MOU), a challenge posed by sensor noise making it difficulty to obtain valid target information. He developed the probabilistic data association filter (PDAF) as a solution to target tracking in cluttered environments and extended it to the joint PDAF for multi-target scenarios. He also contributed to the development of the interacting multiple model (IMM) algorithm for tracking maneuvering targets.
Bar-Shalom has also developed methods for bias estimation, performance bounds, low-observable target detection, multi-sensor data fusion, track-to-track association, and out-of-sequence measurement processing. His work has applications in missile defense, air-traffic control, and surveillance systems. His algorithms have been used to improve the performance of early warning systems, and have been incorporated into airport surface detection radars.
Bar-Shalom has so far published more than 600 papers, 8 books, 20 book chapters and has over 73,000 citations. His H-index is 102.{{Cite web|url=https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=aW9GaKYAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao|title=Google Scholar profile of Bar-Shalom|access-date= 3 May 2025 }} Under his supervision, 42 Ph.D. have graduated in his {{Years ago|1975}} years career as a professor.
Awards and honors
Bar-Shalom is recipient of IEEE Control Systems Society Distinguished Member Award (1987);{{Cite web|url=http://www.ieeecss.org/awards/distinguished-member-award|title=IEEE Control Systems Society Distinguished Member Award}} UConn AAUP Award for Excellence in Research (1988); J. Mignona Data Fusion Award from the DoD JDL Data Fusion Group (2002); IEEE Dennis J. Picard Medal for Radar Technologies and Applications (2008);{{Cite web|url=https://www.ieee.org/about/awards/medals/picard.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100406072358/http://www.ieee.org/about/awards/medals/picard.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=April 6, 2010|title=IEEE Dennis J. Picard Medal for Radar Technologies and Applications|website=Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) }} Connecticut Medal of Technology (2012);{{Cite web|url=https://www.ctcase.org/medals.html|title=Connecticut Medal of Technology}} IEEE AESS Pioneer Award (2022).{{Cite web|url=https://today.uconn.edu/2023/01/yaakov-bar-shalom-earns-ieee-pioneer-award/|title=Yaakov Bar-Shalom Earns IEEE Pioneer Award}}
He has been listed by Microsoft Academic Search (top authors in engineering) as number one among the researchers in Aerospace Engineering based on the citations of his work (2012-2016).
Bar-Shalom is also the recipient of the 2015 ISIF Award for a Lifetime of Excellence in Information Fusion. This award has been renamed in 2016 as the Yaakov Bar-Shalom Award for a Lifetime of Excellence in Information Fusion.{{Cite web|url=http://isif.org/isif-yaakov-bar-shalom-award-lifetime-excellence-information-fusion|title=ISIF Yaakov Bar-Shalom Award for a Lifetime of Excellence in Information Fusion}}
Bibliography
=Dissertation=
- {{Cite thesis
| last = Bar-Shalom
| first = Yaakov
| title = Identification and Estimation in Linear Discrete-Time Systems with Unknown Parameters
| publisher = Princeton University
| date = 1970
| type = Ph.D. thesis
}}
=Books=
- {{Cite book
| last1 = Bar-Shalom
| first1 = Yaakov
| last2 = Willett
| first2 = Peter K.
| last3 = Tian
| first3 = Xin
| title = Tracking and Data Fusion
| publisher = YBS Publishing
| location = Storrs, CT, USA
| year = 2011
}}
- {{Cite book
| last1 = Bar-Shalom
| first1 = Yaakov
| last2 = Li
| first2 = X. Rong
| last3 = Kirubarajan
| first3 = Thiagalingam
| title = Estimation with Applications to Tracking and Navigation: Theory Algorithms and Software
| publisher = Wiley
| year = 2004
}}
- {{Cite book
| last1 = Bar-Shalom
| first1 = Yaakov
| last2 = Li
| first2 = Xiao-Rong
| title = Estimation and Tracking: Principles, Techniques, and Software
| publisher = Artech House
| location = Norwood, MA
| year = 1993
}}
- {{Cite book
| last1 = Bar-Shalom
| first1 = Yaakov
| last2 = Li
| first2 = Xiao-Rong
| title = Multitarget-Multisensor Tracking: Principles and Techniques
| publisher = YBS Publishing
| location = Storrs, CT
| year = 1995
}}
- {{Cite book
| last = Bar-Shalom
| first = Yaakov
| title = Multitarget-Multisensor Tracking: Advanced Applications
| publisher = Artech House
| location = Norwood, MA
| year = 1990
}}
=Articles=
- {{Cite journal
| last1 = Bar-Shalom
| first1 = Yaakov
| last2 = Tse
| first2 = Edison
| title = Tracking in a Cluttered Environment with Probabilistic Data Association
| journal = Automatica
| volume = 11
| issue = 5
| pages = 451–460
| year = 1975
}}
- {{Cite journal
| last = Bar-Shalom
| first = Yaakov
| title = Tracking Methods in a Multitarget Environment
| journal = IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control
| volume = 23
| issue = 4
| pages = 618–626
| year = 1978
}}
- {{Cite journal
| last = Bar-Shalom
| first = Yaakov
| title = On the Track-to-Track Correlation Problem
| journal = IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control
| volume = 26
| issue = 2
| pages = 571–572
| year = 1981
}}
- {{Cite journal
| last1 = Kirubarajan
| first1 = T.
| last2 = Bar-Shalom
| first2 = Yaakov
| last3 = Wang
| first3 = Y.
| title = Passive Ranging of a Low Observable Ballistic Missile in a Gravitational Field
| journal = IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems
| volume = 37
| issue = 2
| pages = 481–494
| date = April 2001
| doi = 10.1109/7.937463
| url = https://doi.org/10.1109/7.937463
| url-access = subscription
}}
- {{Cite journal
| last = Bar-Shalom
| first = Yaakov
| title = Update with Out-of-Sequence Measurements in Tracking: Exact Solution
| journal = IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems
| volume = 38
| issue = 3
| pages = 769–777
| year = 2002
}}
- {{Cite journal
| last1 = Blom
| first1 = Henk A. P.
| last2 = Bar-Shalom
| first2 = Yaakov
| title = The Interacting Multiple Model Algorithm for Systems with Markovian Switching Coefficients
| journal = IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control
| volume = 33
| issue = 8
| pages = 780–783
| year = 2002
}}
- {{Cite journal
| last1 = Bar-Shalom
| first1 = Yaakov
| last2 = Daum
| first2 = Fred
| last3 = Huang
| first3 = Jim
| title = The Probabilistic Data Association Filter
| journal = IEEE Control Systems Magazine
| volume = 29
| issue = 6
| pages = 82–100
| year = 2009
}}
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- [https://ctcase.org/member/yaakov-bar-shalom/ CT Academy of Science: Yaakov Bar-Shalom]
- [https://isif.org/contact/yaakov-bar-shalom ISIF memer bio]
- [https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/author/38274891500 IEEE author bio]
- [http://esplab1.ee.uconn.edu/ Estimation and Signal Processing Laboratory]
- [https://www.ee.uconn.edu/yaakov-bar-shalom/ University of Connecticut faculty bio]
{{authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bar-Shalom, Yaakov}}
Category:Scientists from Timișoara
Category:20th-century Israeli Jews
Category:20th-century American Jews
Category:Jews from Connecticut
Category:American people of Hungarian-Jewish descent
Category:Israeli emigrants to the United States
Category:Romanian emigrants to Israel
Category:American electrical engineers
Category:Israeli electrical engineers
Category:University of Connecticut faculty