Håvard Fjær Grip
Håvard Fjær Grip is a Norwegian cybernetics engineer and robotics technologist. He was the Chief Pilot of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory Mars helicopter, Ingenuity, and led the development of Ingenuity’s aerodynamics and flight control system. Grip successfully flew Ingenuity's first flight on Mars on April 19, 2021, which made history as the first extraterrestrial helicopter flight.[1][2] He is currently Chief Engineer of the Mars Sample Recovery Helicopters, part of the NASA-ESA Mars Sample Return campaign.[3][4]
Håvard Fjær Grip | |
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![]() Chief Pilot Håvard Grip, entering Ingenuity flight details in the Nominal Pilot’s Logbook | |
Nationality | Norwegian |
Alma mater | Norwegian University of Science and Technology |
Known for | First extraterrestrial helicopter flight by the Ingenuity |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Cybernetics, Robotics |
Institutions | Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, |
Thesis | Topics in State and Parameter Estimation for Nonlinear and Uncertain Systems (2010) |
Life
From 2001 to 2006 Grip took a five-year engineering cybernetics master's degree, and from 2006 to 2010 a PhD at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). During his studies he was awarded for outstanding academic performance in engineering studies, as well as having the best master's thesis in 2006 in Norway within the field of control and automation.[5][6][7]
After having been awarded and having achieved his five-year master's degree with almost only A's, Grip handed in his master's thesis Nonlinear vehicle velocity observer with road-tire friction adaptation. The dissertation focused on real-time estimation of dynamic variables for use in safety systems in cars, such as anti-lock brakes (ABS brakes) and electronic stability program (ESP). Out from the thesis the car giant Daimler AG showed great interest in Grip's work.[8] As a result, he was hired on a contract project at the Daimler Group Research & Advanced Engineering while employed as a Scientific Researcher at SINTEF ICT from 2007 - 2008. Here he continued researching anticollision systems for safer cars in the automotive industry.[9]
In 2010, Grip started working as an adjunct assistant professor for the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Washington State University.[10] Here he conducted an independent research project from a personal research grant by the Research Council of Norway while employed as a Senior Research Fellow for the council.[11] His research interests topics is nonlinear control and observer design, navigation and vehicle state estimation, decentralized control of heterogeneous systems, and structurally based design techniques for stability and robustness of nonlinear systems.[12]
![](../I/PIA24440-MarsIngenuityHelicopter-Logbook-20210419.jpg.webp)
Grip has since 2013 worked as a robotics technologist in the Guidance and Control Analysis Group at Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). He led the Mars Helicopter Guidance, Navigation, and Control team,[13][14] where he designed algorithms and software that helps control and guide the Martian helicopter. Grip's role as Chief Pilot included planning the flight, constructing command sequences and analyzing the flight data for the helicopter.[15] Other team members taking part in the helicopter project includes Program Executive Dave Lavery, Chief Engineer Bob Balaram, and Project Manager MiMi Aung.
The Martian helicopter was launched from Earth with the rover Perseverance through NASA's Mars 2020 mission as a part of NASA's Mars Exploration Program.[16] The rover carried the Martian helicopter along with seven other instruments to Mars, where the rover's mission is to identify Martian environments that is capable of supporting life. One of the instruments includes the Radar Imager for Mars' subsurface experiment (RIMFAX), which is a Norwegian developed georadar by Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI), led by Principal Investigator Svein-Erik Hamran of FFI, and his team that includes scientists from Norway, Canada and the United States.[17]
On April 19, 2021, at 11:30 UTC Håvard Fjær Grip flew Ingenuity for 39.1 seconds. Rising the helicopter vertically about ten feet, rotating in place 96 degrees in a planned maneuver, and landing successfully.[18][19][20]
Personal life
As hobbies, Grip likes to fly his Piper Cherokee 140 as a private aircraft pilot, bicycle, play the piano and hang out with his family.[21]
Selected publications
- H. F. Grip, A. Saberi, and T. A. Johansen, "Observers for interconnected nonlinear and linear systems," Automatica, vol. 48, no. 7, pp. 1339–1346, 2012.
- H. F. Grip, T. Yang, A. Saberi, and A. A. Stoorvogel, "Output synchronization for heterogeneous networks of non-introspective agents," Automatica, vol. 48, no. 10, pp. 2444–2453, 2012.
- H. F. Grip, L. Imsland, T. A. Johansen, J. C. Kalkkuhl, and A. Suissa, "Vehicle sideslip estimation: Design, implementation, and experimental validation," IEEE Control Systems Magazine, vol. 29, no. 5, pp. 36–52, 2009.
References
- Northon, Karen (2021-04-17). "NASA to Attempt First Controlled Flight on Mars As Soon As Monday". NASA. Retrieved 2021-04-20.
- Slattery, Chad (1 March 2022). "Håvard Fjær Grip: Pilot from Another Planet". AOPA Pilot Magazine. Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association. Retrieved 20 October 2023.
- David, Leonard. "NASA sets sights on a next-generation Mars helicopter to return Red Planet samples". space.com. Retrieved 20 October 2023.
- McFall-Johnson, Morgan (21 January 2023). "I pilot NASA's first and only Mars helicopter. My job can be like a video game, but not the kind with a joystick". Insider. Retrieved 20 October 2023.
- "Håvard Fjær Grip - Publications". eecs.wsu.edu. Retrieved 2021-04-28.
- "Universitetsavisa". gamle.universitetsavisa.no. Retrieved 2021-04-20.
- "JPL Robotics: People: Håvard Grip". www-robotics.jpl.nasa.gov. Archived from the original on 2013-11-12. Retrieved 2021-04-20.
- "Campuspizza med nødrim og god latin". gamle.universitetsavisa.no. Retrieved 2021-04-20.
- "Research paves way for safer cars". SINTEF. Retrieved 2021-04-20.
- "Håvard Fjær Grip". eecs.wsu.edu. Retrieved 2021-04-28.
- "Håvard Fjær Grip". eecs.wsu.edu. Retrieved 2021-04-20.
- "JPL Robotics: People: Håvard Grip". www-robotics.jpl.nasa.gov. Archived from the original on 2015-09-06. Retrieved 2021-04-20.
- NTB (2021-02-18). "Skal fly helikopter på Mars: – Vanskelig å si om dette er livsverket mitt". forskning.no (in Norwegian). Retrieved 2021-04-20.
- "Leads the Flight Control Team for NASA's Mars Helicopter - NTNU". www.ntnu.edu. Retrieved 2021-04-20.
- mars.nasa.gov. "Håvard Fjær Grip - Ingenuity Chief Pilot | People Profile". mars.nasa.gov. Archived from the original on 2021-04-19. Retrieved 2021-04-23.
- mars.nasa.gov. "NASA, ULA Launch Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover Mission to Red Planet". NASA’s Mars Exploration Program. Retrieved 2021-06-01.
- "Science team". 2019-04-25. Archived from the original on 2019-04-25. Retrieved 2021-06-01.
- Witze, Alexandra (2021-04-19). "Lift off! First flight on Mars launches new way to explore worlds". Nature. 592 (7856): 668–669. doi:10.1038/d41586-021-00909-z. PMID 33875875.
- Brekke, Anders (2021-04-19). "Nasa-helikopter har flydd på Mars". NRK (in Norwegian Bokmål). Retrieved 2021-04-20.
- "Success! NASA's Ingenuity Makes 1st Powered Flight On Mars". NPR.org. Retrieved 2021-04-20.
- mars.nasa.gov. "Håvard Fjær Grip - Ingenuity Chief Pilot | People Profile". mars.nasa.gov. Retrieved 2021-04-23.
External links
- Håvard Fjær Grip publications indexed by Google Scholar.
- Håvard Fjær Grip publications indexed by NASA.