2019 Parsons Medal awarded to Michael McLaughlin
2019 Parsons Medal recipient Michael McLaughlin (centre) showing a wafer of integrated circuits to Lord Rosse of Birr Castle (left) and Dr. Jim Browne, President of the Irish Academy of Engineering.
The Irish Academy of Engineering (IAE) is delighted to announce the recipient of the Parson’s Medal awarded for excellence in engineering, the only annual medal given by the IAE. Fittingly the Award was held at Birr Castle Demesne, ancestral home of Sir Charles Parsons, eminent Irish engineer, and namesake of this medal who won it for his invention of the compound steam turbine – his portrait is in the background of the photograph.
The recipient of this year’s Parsons Medal is Michael McLaughlin, the founder, President and chief technical officer of Decawave Ltd. The outstanding and incredibly clever work that Michael has done in the past 15 years means that Ireland is seen internationally as the global leader in highly accurate radio positioning technology. Michael founded Decawave Ltd with the vision of developing and marketing a system that provides centimetre accuracy positioning using ultrawideband wireless signals. Today, Decawave provides that system on a single chip. No other location technology offers the convenience and versatility of Michael’s single chip design. Applications already using this solution include automobile security, factory automation, sports tracking and asset tracking. Decawave’s chip, despite its tiny size, is the most advanced and complex engineering device ever to come out of Ireland.
Picture Credit: Jeff Harvey