John Mott was awarded the Fall 2017 Civil Engineering Best Dissertation Award and will be recognized this fall at the Civil Engineering Scholarship and Awards Banquet.

Of the nearly 5,000 public-use airports in the US, the vast majority do not have staffed towers that tabulate aircraft operations.  Accurate aircraft operation counts are important to state agencies and the FAA for allocating airport improvement funds.  Mott developed an adaptive digital filter for estimating aircraft distance based upon signal strength.  His digital filter and associated processing techniques can be used to obtain accurate aircraft operation counts.  Mott, and his advisor, Darcy Bullock, Lyles Family Professor of Civil Engineering, have filed a provisional patent and have licensed this technology to a private sector company for commercialization.  The commercialized product is expected to be available in 2018.