FocalPoint Founder wins IOP Dennis Gabor Medal

The judges at this year’s IOP annual awards awarded our Founder, President & CTO, Dr Ramsey Faragher with the Dennis Gabor Medal and prize for innovations in signal processing and sensor fusion.

The IOP’s annual awards, including the Business Innovation Award, proudly reflect the wide variety of people, places, organisations and achievements that make physics such an exciting and critical discipline. View our Business Award news here.

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The Dennis Gabor Medal recognises Ramsey’s efforts relating to the invention and commercialisation of our Supercorrelation™ technique that greatly increases the accuracy, sensitivity and security of global navigation satellite system receivers. On picking up the Per Enge Award from the Institute of Navigation, Faragher’s work was described as “pioneering and revolutionary”.

Rafael Lucas Rodriguez, Head of the European Space Agency (ESA) NAVISP Technical Programme Office said in a speech at ESA’s annual navigation conference 2022 that it is “the most significant improvement to GNSS since the invention of Assisted-GNSS”.

About the award-winning Supercorrelation™ Technology

Supercorrelation is a suite of signal processing and sensor fusion techniques that enables synthetic aperture processing (the invention of this technique by Martin Ryle won him the 1974 Nobel Prize in Physics) on very low-cost consumer devices, for the first time. This software beamforming technology provides unprecedented levels of accuracy, sensitivity and security for GNSS receivers.

Our recent investment from GM Ventures and strategic alignment with General Motors reflects the impact that the technology is having on the automotive sector. The technology will also be critical for bringing next level positioning performance to smartphones and smartwatches. We continue to undergo extensive trialling with major names in the smartphone sector and Supercorrelation is on target to reach hundreds of millions of users worldwide within the next few years.

In good company

Over on X (formerly Twitter), Science Editor, Tom Whipple sheds further light on the significance of the medal; in 1960 R V Jones, the British Physicist who solved a number scientific and technical intelligence problems involving radio positioning technologies during World War II, won this same medal. It was also awarded in 1997 to Timothy Berners-Lee, the man who invented the World Wide Web. It’s great to see our Founder amongst such an esteemed list of medal winners. Ramsey’s passion and ease of demystifying technical subject matter, along with his industry reputation as a world-leading expert in positioning and navigation, make him a desirable mentor amongst current and prospective physicists and engineers.

On receiving the award, Dr Faragher said “It is such a huge honour and personal milestone to receive this award from the Institute of Physics. I’m flattered to join such an impressive list of previous winners and to be recognised by such a renowned institution for my contributions to the field.”

Congratulating this year’s award winners, Institute of Physics President, Professor Sir Keith Burnett said: “On behalf of the Institute of Physics, I want to congratulate all of this year’s award winners. Each one has made a significant and positive impact in their profession, whether as a researcher, teacher, industrialist, technician or apprentice and I hope they are incredibly proud of their achievements.

“There is so much focus today on the opportunities generated by a career in physics and the potential our science has to transform our society and economy and I hope the stories of our winners will help to inspire future generations of scientists."

Our Supercorrelation technology is addressing challenges that will change our world , with the ability to enhance the efficiency and safety of everyday life. If you’re interested in learning more about Supercorrelation - take a look at our website.