Bálint Vanek, Ph.D.

deputy director of organizational development

@email

Phone

+36 1 279 6113

Address

1111 Budapest, Kende u. 13-17.

Room number

K 218

Systems and Control Lab

P-FLEX (demonstrator aircraft within the FliPASED project) — P-FLEX aeroservoelastic demonstrator at DLR Cochstedt airport (photo: DLR)

Introduction

My research interest includes safety aspects of both manned and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). My research areas include fault detection and reconfigurable control of aerospace systems, mainly using the linear parameter-varying (LPV) framework. UAVs and their insertion into the common airspace is another research topic I am interested in. I am working on developing a safety critical avionics architecture for small UAVs and also providing them a vision based sense-and-avoid system. I coordinated the H2020 Research Projects FLEXOP and FliPASED , working on flexible aircraft control technologies, to mitigate the effects of flutter. I coordinate currently the Hungarian TKP-V research project dealing with hydrogen powered remote sensing platforms. I am also working together with my colleagues within the ARNL (NATIONAL LAB FOR AUTONOMOUS SYSTEMS), mostly related to drones and autonomous ground vehicles and their coordinated control.

Positions

Senior research fellow, leader of the Aerospace Guidance, Navigation, and Control Group, 2009- (SZTAKI)
Deputy director 2023- (SZTAKI)
Senior scientist 2008-2009 (Honeywell Aerospace Advanced Technology)

Education

PhD, University of Minnesota, Department of Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics (2008). Title: Control Methods for High-Speed Supercavitating Vehicles, Advisor: Gary J. Balas
Msc, Budapesti University of Technology and Economics (2003). Title: Solution for Aircraft Formation Flight Problems, Advisor: József Bokor

Research Interest

Flight control
Aeroelasticity
Fault detection
Unmanned aerial vehicles
Inertial and satellite navigation systems

Memberships, professional activities

IEEE CSS Control System Society
IFAC TC 7.3 Technical Committee on Aerospace
IFAC TC 7.5 Technical Committee on Intelligent Autonomous Vehicles
Program committee member: IFAC Automatic Control in Aerospace Conference, 2016 (Portland)
Program committee member: IFAC World Congress, 2014 (Cape Town, South Africa)
Program committee member: American Control Conference, 2014 (Portland)
Program committee chair: 9th Workshop on Advanced Control and Diagnosis, 2011 (Budapest)

Teaching

Budapesti University of Technology and Economics
- Aircraft avionics systems

Selected projects

FliPASED, Coordinator, (EU H2020) (2019-2023)
- Advanced control methods for flutter free aircraft flight control. First conventional configuration unmanned aircraft flight with active flutter control.
VISION, PI, (EU H2020 - Japan collaborative project) (2016-2019)
- Validation of Integrated Safety-enhanced Intelligent flight cONtroL.
FLEXOP, Coordinator, (EU H2020) (2015-2019)
- Advanced methods for aeroelastic aircraft modelling and control design. The methods are validated on a flexible wing unmanned demonstrator.
ADDSAFE (EU FP7) (2009-2012)
- Fault detection of aircraft flight control surfaces. The methods are validated on hardware testbenches of Airbus.
ACTUATION 2015 (EU FP7) (2010-2014)
- Modular electro mechanical actuators for the future generations of aircraft. SZTAKI’s role is related to advanced control and health monitoring.
RECONFIGURE (EU FP7) (2013-2015)
- Reconfigurable flight control algorithms for helping the pilot with maintain flight envelope protection and handling qualities applied to Airbus’s flight control benchmark.
Sense and Avoid (ONR Global) (2011-2014)
- Vision only sense and avoid system for small UAVs with low power consumption.