Ernst Dickmanns was born in Newcastle, near Cologne, Germany on January 4th, 1936. In 1956, following graduation from the Polz Gymnasium, he started practical work with Dornier Aircraft Engineering near Munich and in metallurgy in Kulstoph in order to enter the Aerospace Engineering industry. In addition to studying aerospace and aeronautics at RWTH Aachen from 1956 to 196,where he received his engineering degree, he studied control engineering and aerospace applications at Princeton University from 1964 to ’65, performed aerospace research with Deutsche Forschungs-und Versuchsanstalt from 1961 to ’75, earned his Ph.D. in 1969 from the Technical University in Aachen and spent his post-doc research working on the shuttle orbiter reentry with the NASA-Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama in 1971-72. He was a member of the faculty at the Universität der Bundeswehr München in Munich from 1975 until his retirement in 2001, Dickmanns’ research focuses on Robotics and Artificial Intelligence, specifically on dynamic computer vision and on autonomous vehicles.