ICNS 2023 Committee Bios

Thomas Redling, L3Harris Space and Airborne Systems, Mission Avionics

Tom Redling is a versatile leader with comprehensive experience in program management, technology portfolio management, systems engineering, product development, innovation, and business development across commercial, military, and space industries. Tom is currently a scientist at L3HARRIS in Palm Bay, FL. There he is an advanced concept engineer in the avionics business area, devoted to the technology side of capturing new business. He holds a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering focused on special research in solid state electronics from Rutgers University in 1988. He continued with a Master of Science in electrical engineering & biomedical systems from the New Jersey Institute of Technology in 1993. His education was completed with a Master of Science in management of technology from the Stevens Institute of Technology in 1997.

He is a strong communicator that delivered presentations at conferences and published 18 papers on avionics in IEEE Xplore, IEEE Systems Magazine, AIAA conference proceedings, and INCOSE journals. He is currently the ICNS Executive Committee (IEC) chair. He was also ICNS conference general chair in 2012 and is Co-conference general chair for this year’s ICNS Conference.

Aloke Roy, VisionAR Systems, LLC

Mr. Aloke Roy is the managing partner at Visionar Systems, LLC, which provides systems engineering services to the aerospace industry. Mr. Roy covers technology research on artificial intelligence, machine learning, cybersecurity and wireless communications. Prior to this, Mr. Roy was with Honeywell Advanced Technology organization managing data communication, information security and radio technology development programs supporting Honeywell Aerospace.

Previously, Mr. Roy was director of programs at Flextronics Corporation managing several major telecommunications OEM accounts. In this role, Mr. Roy was responsible for business development, outsourcing, and globalization of hardware design activities supporting large volume contract electronic manufacturing. His prior experiences include various positions at AT&T Bell Laboratories and ARINC Aviation Systems Division. As systems engineering director at ARINC, Mr. Roy oversaw development of SATCOM, HF, VDL, ATIS, and PDC standards and services. Currently, Mr. Roy chairs RTCA Special Committee 223, which is developing the Aviation Internet Protocol and Aeronautical Mobile Airport Communication System requirements and operational performance standards.

Mr. Roy is an advisor to FAA on communication and cyber security technologies and participates at ICAO Communications Panel on behalf of FAA. Mr. Roy holds several patents on aeronautical, wireless and secure communications. He was the President (2017-2018) of a Maryland-DC-Virginia volunteer cultural organization with 1000+ members; the chair of IEEE AESS Avionics Systems Panel (2019-2020); general conference chair of DASC 2019 and ICNS 2017.

Prof.dr.ir Erik Theunissen, Netherlands Defence Academy (NLDA)

Prof. Theunissen has been active in the field of avionics for over 30 years. He is a member of the AIAA/IEEE Digital Avionics Technical Committee and RTCA Special Committee 228. Since 2003 he is a professor (part-time) at the Netherlands Defence Academy (NLDA). The company ISD, which he founded in 1988, has designed synthetic vision systems for Rockwell Collins that have been flight-tested in the Boeing 727 from the FAA, the Boeing 737-900 Technology Demonstrator, the NASA Boeing 757 ARIES, and several other test aircraft). Since 2008 he has been involved in the design and evaluation of Detect and Avoid systems for unmanned aircraft, and since 2010 his company ISD is involved in the design of the GA-ASI Conflict Prediction and Display System (CPDS). Between 2014 and 2018 he supported flight testing of CPDS, a prototype self-separation system, at NASA Armstrong. For his research, he has received over 20 international awards among which two times the MITRE-sponsored David Lubkowski Award for Best of Conference.

Dr. Michael Schnell, German Aerospace Center (DLR)

Michael Schnell is senior scientist at the Institute of Communications and Navigation of the German Aerospace Center (DLR). His main research interests are the development and modernization of CNS technologies for civil aviation and unmanned aerial systems.

After his studies at the University Erlangen-Nuremberg he joined DLR in 1990 with a Master of Science in electrical engineering. Since then he has been working as scientific researcher and earned a doctoral degree for his work on wireless communications in 1997 from University of Essen (today University of Duisburg-Essen). Dr. Schnell is a lecturer for multi-carrier communications as well as for aeronautical communications and acts as selected advisor for the German Air Navigation Service Provider (DFS GmbH) on various committees at EUROCONTROL and ICAO. As rapporteur of the project team “Terrestrial Data Link” within the ICAO Communications Panel he is organizing the international standardization of the future terrestrial data link LDACS. He has authored/co-authored over 120 publications, including more than 20 journal articles. He is a senior member IEEE as well as member of AIAA and VDE/ITG.

Brent Phillips, FAA

Brent Phillips is a senior systems engineer with the Federal Aviation Administration’s NextGen Organization and the U.S. panel member to the International Civil Aviation. Organization (ICAO) Communications Panel. Mr. Phillips is also the program co-lead for the joint FAA/SESAR Future Communications Infrastructure Study including the development of the Aeronautical Mobile Airport Communications System (AeroMACS) and the Next Generation SATCOM Systems. He is currently leading the Internet Protocol Suite (IPS) standards development for aviation use in the FAA. He is also serving as the communications lead on the NAS Enterprise Architecture Roadmap Team.

Lance Sherry, George Mason University

Lance Sherry is an associate professor of systems engineering and operations research at George Mason University. Dr. Sherry also serves as the director of the Center for Air Transportation Systems Research at George Mason University. Dr. Sherry has over 30 years of experience in the aviation industry serving as a flight-test engineer, flight control engineer, system engineer, lead system architect, program manager, strategic planning and business development. Dr. Sherry served as a fellow at RAND Corporation 1999-2001. He has published over 100 papers and journal articles, holds several patents, and has received awards for his work.