Dr. Gérard Lachapelle

Professor and Canada Research Chair/iCORE Chair in Wireless Location
Department of Geomatics Engineering
University of Calgary         

Professor Gérard Lachapelle’s pioneering work has helped make Alberta a world-class centre of excellence in Global Positioning System (GPS) and related geomatics technologies.

In the early 1980s, Prof. Lachapelle led the investigation and development of GPS – a satellite-based navigation and positioning technology – for Sheltech Canada, one of the first commercial organizations in the world to undertake this work. Satellite-based navigation is an area of geomatics, the science of collecting and managing geographical information. Prof. Lachapelle helped found Norstar Instruments, which became NovAtel, a leading Calgary-based manufacturer and exporter of advanced GPS equipment.

Since joining the University of Calgary’s Department of Geomatics Engineering in 1988, Prof. Lachapelle has built a strong research team, cementing the department’s reputation as the national centre of expertise in GPS. The university has licensed technologies developed by Prof. Lachapelle and his team to more than 160 organizations in 20 countries, generating more than $5 million in revenue. Many of these innovative technologies have become “must haves” for research institutions and commercial GPS developers around the world. Prof. Lachapelle’s research contributes to commercial applications in a wide range of areas from natural resource management, agriculture, transportation and recreation to defence and national security. His innovative advanced signal tracking methodology is used to track satellites of the European Union’s Galileo satellite-based navigation system, now under development.