Stanley F. Schmidt

Stanley F. Schmidt (January 21, 1926 – August 13, 2015) was an American aerospace engineer who pioneered the Schmidt-Kalman filter used in air and space navigation, most notably in Apollo spacecraft.

[5] From 1946 to 1961, Schmidt worked with NASA Ames Research Center, where he discovered the utility of the Kalman filter as applied to data processing for the nonlinear navigation equations of the Apollo crewed lunar missions.

During 1961 and 1962, Schmidt was with Lockheed Missiles and Space Company, applying filter theory and model identification techniques and developing digital computer programs to process tracking data and give postflight evaluation of launch vehicle guidance and propulsion systems.

Also at Philco, he conceived the fan beam navigation satellite technique and pursued studies to prove the feasibility and accuracy of this concept.

At AMA, Schmidt developed a special Kalman filter formulation for a navigation system, applied control theory to improve NASA piloted flight simulators, and developed several on-board navigation systems which incorporate square-root formulations of the Kalman filter.