Bálint Vanek

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.

Publication databases

• MTMT
• Google Scholar
• Researcher ID
• Scopus
• Orcid
• ResearchGate

Hobby

• Swimming
• Water polo
• Mountain bike
• Triathlon