Xerox Corporation researcher Lalit K. Mestha, a Xerox principal scientist and IEEE senior member, has received the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers' 2006 Control Systems Technology Award for his "outstanding contributions to control systems technology in design, implementation and project management." The award, presented yesterday at the 45th annual IEEE Conference on Decision and Control in San Diego, is only given once a year.
Mestha, who is an expert in sensing and modern control theory, has spent his career studying control of charged particle systems. A control system is designed to manage or regulate how other devices or systems behave. Control systems are typically used in printers to automatically control how toner is placed to ensure consistent, accurate image quality. At Xerox, where Mestha's focus has been in photometric sensing, he is working on control of toner particles and color for digital printing and imaging systems.
"System and color controls is a critical capability at Xerox. In order to generate high quality prints, our iGen3 digital production press, places over one billion pieces of toner on every printed color page," said Sophie Vandebroek, Xerox Chief Technology Officer and Fellow of the IEEE. "It is scientists that are leaders in their fields that enable Xerox to continue to delight our customers."
Mestha's earliest work was investigating control of protons and their behavior in particle accelerator systems. He designed and perfected a control system for a proton accelerator for the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxford, U.K., which is still being used today. He also led a team of scientists and engineers at the Department of Energy's Super Conducting Super Collider Laboratory in Dallas, resulting in groundbreaking control system advances. Most recently the team of Xerox researchers led by Mestha was recognized with R&D Magazine's Top 100 award for its work on a color spectrophotometer as "one of the most technologically significant new products of the year 2006."
Since joining Xerox in 1994, Mestha has significantly advanced the application of modern control theory and modeling as the basis for next-generation marker controls and digital imaging systems. His work has encompassed process and color controls for digital printers and, more recently, for color management systems. He holds 43 U.S. patents, has 53 U.S. patents pending, and has published more than 30 conference and journal papers.
Mestha is an adjunct professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology. He received his doctorate in electrical engineering from the University of Bath, England, and his bachelor's degree from the University of Mysore in India.
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