Hugh F. Durrant-Whyte

Hugh Francis Durrant-Whyte (born 6 February 1961) is a British-Australian engineer and academic. He is known for his pioneering work on probabilistic methods for robotics. The algorithms developed in his group since the early 1990s permit autonomous vehicles to deal with uncertainty and to localize themselves despite noisy sensor readings using simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM).

Early life and education Durrant-Whyte was born on 6 February 1961 in London, England. He was educated at Richard Hale School, then a state grammar school in Hertford, Hertfordshire. He studied engineering at the University of London, graduating with a first class Bachelor of Science (BSc) degree in 1983. He then moved to the United States where he studied systems engineering at the University of Pennsylvania: he graduated with a Master of Science in Engineering (MSE) degree in 1985 and a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in 1986. He was a Thouron Scholar in 1983.

Career and research From 1986 to 1987, Durrant-Whyte was a BP research fellow in the Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford, and a Fellow of St Cross College, Oxford. Then, from 1987 to 1995, he was a Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, and a university lecturer in engineering science.

Durrant-Whyte is one of the early pioneers of SLAM with John J. Leonard. Durrant-Whyte became the CEO of NICTA on 13 December 2010. He resigned as NICTA CEO on 28 November 2014 citing differences with the Board over future funding arrangements.

He was appointed as the Chief Scientific Adviser at the UK Ministry of Defence on 27 February 2017. As a dual citizen with Australian and British citizenship, Durrant-Whyte was barred from overseeing the UK's nuclear weapons programme.

In May 2018 Durrant-Whyte was appointed NSW Chief Scientist & Engineer by Gladys Berejiklian, NSW Premier. He took up his appointment on 3 September 2018.

Honours and awards His awards include FRS – Fellow of the Royal Society FAA – Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science FREng – Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (2018) FIEEE – Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers FTSE – Fellow of the Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering HonFIEAus – Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Engineers Australia M A Sargent Medal (2017) NSW Scientist of the Year (2010) IEEE Distinguished Lecturer Award (2009) ATSE Clunies Ross Award (2009) Professional Engineer of the year (2008) Institute of Engineers Australia, Sydney IFR/IEEE Invention and Entrepreneurship Award (2007) New South Wales Pearcy Award (2004) Harry Lees Award (2004) Institute of Marine Engineers Warren Centre Innovation Hero (2003) BAE Systems Chairman's Gold Award (2003) Four IEEE Best Paper prizes (IROS 1994 and 2006, Data Fusion1997, Robotics 2004)

Offices held