Francois Du Plessis Email & Phone Number

Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, Ae

Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

Various aspects of flight control for autonomous systems, including:- 6 degree-of-freedom simulation development using Matlab/Simulink- Aerodynamic model implementation/interpretation for the purpose of simulation and design- Inertial sensor performance evaluation- Guidance loop design- Control loop design- Guidance and control concept evaluations- Technology transfer / training- Responsible for development and execution of a junior engineers' training program- Head of Guidance and Control Division

Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

Various aspects of flight control for autonomous systems, including:- 6 degree-of-freedom simulation development using Matlab/Simulink- Aerodynamic model implementation/interpretation for the purpose of simulation and design- Inertial sensor performance evaluation- Guidance loop design- Control loop design- Guidance and control concept evaluations- Technology transfer / training

Irene, Centurion, South Africa

System Technical Specialist at Airbus Defence and Space Optronics in Irene, Centurion, South Africa. My responsibilities include the following tasks:Electro-optical system stabilization, including o System performance prediction and evaluation o Control loop evaluation o System modelling using Matlab and Simulink o Inertial sensor modelling and characterizationElectro-optical system and payload navigation system implementation, including o Extended Kalman Filter design for the hybrid navigation system o System simulation and performance prediction using Matlab and Simulink.Electro-optical system visual auto-tracker implementation, including o The system simulation and performance prediction o The design of the various tracking filters based on different Kalman filter configurations

Auckland Park, Johannesburg, South Africa

Consulting engineer for Resolution Circle in the field of Intelligent Battery Management Systems and on the development of engineering training courses. The Battery Management Systems focussed on the application of Extended Kalman Filters to develop a novel battery characterisation system.

Auckland Park, Johannesburg, South Africa

Senior lecturer in control systems with application areas in - inertial navigation systems- robotics- machine vision- hybrid energy systems- Battery Management SystemsLecturing responsibilities• 2005-2009: Control Systems 3B and Control Systems 4A• 2010: Control Systems 4A, Electrotechnics 2A• 2011: Computer Systems 3B• 2012: Computer Systems 3B, Systems Engineering 3B• 2012-2015 Control Systems 3B and Control Systems 4APost-graduate student supervision – completedCo-supervisor• S.F. Roets - Evaluating MEMS IMU's for Inertial Navigation with Monte Carlo Simulations on a Graphics Processor, July 2010• D. Fourie - Optimisation of Electric Long Endurance Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, Aug 2011 (Cum Laude)• S. Claassens - A UNIFIED RAPID-PROTOTYPING DEVELOPMENT FRAMEWORK FOR THE CONTROL, COMMAND, AND MONITORING OF UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLES, December 2011• Marco Furrutter, Intelligent management strategy for a fuel cell/battery hybrid power system, July 2011• Grant Wilkens – Development of an energy management system for a solar powered UAV, August 2011Supervisor• William Shipman – Characterization and Non-linear Model Predictive Control of a Small-scale helicopter, January 2012 (Cum Laude)• Thabo Moyo – 3D path planning and obstacle avoidance for a power line inspection UAV.• Antonio Corregedor – Laser-based robot mapping and navigation system • Charles Murcott – Vision aided navigation systemsPost-graduate student supervision – in process at date of compilationSupervisor• Marc Evans – Development of an optical tracking system based on a particle filter implemented on a GPU• Sven Holte – Stereo-vision based robot mapping and navigation system• Khonzi Hlope – Development of an Ultrasonic Positioning System based Guidance and Navigation System for an Autonomous Underground Vehicle.Co-supervisor• Branden Andrews – Attitude determination by means of machine vision techniques towards navigation systems

Auckland Park, Johannesburg, South Africa

Technical Director and Systems Engineer of Conceptua Engineering, a private company working to develop novel mine surveying techniques using machine vision and unmanned aerial vehicles. I was responsible for the technical scoping the system design and the implementation and integration of the aircraft autopilot system.

Centurion

Inertial navigation system analyst.Development of a new fiber optic gyro calibration algorithm

UAV developmental researchInertial navigation system research and analysisVisual aided navigation research and analysis

Midrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

Systems Engineer at Advanced Technologies and Engineering (ATE) in Midrand. Responsible for • Weapon algorithm development, • Performance prediction, • simulation, • implementation and • data analysis of various algorithmic components of the Navigation and Weapons Systems on the Hawk Fighter Trainer aircraft development program. Activities spanned the developmental and flight test phases of the aircraft programme.

Doctor Of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Electronic Engineering

Topic: An alternative Gyro Calibration Methodology

B.Ing, M.Sc.Ing, Electronic Engineering