Aerospace PhD Seminar and MISE Short course by KU Leuven

We would like to thank our colleagues from KU Leuven, Prof Jan Swevers and Dr Laurens Jacobs, who have visited our department on 25th and 26th April 2024 to deliver a talk in our Aerospace PhD seminar series (see link -the video of the talk will be posted shortly) and a short-course in the “Seminars on Advanced Topics” of our Master in Space Engineering (MISE).

Prof Swevers and Dr Jacobs are part of the MECO Research Team of the Department of Mechanical Engineering of KU Leuven, who specializes in developing advanced control algorithms (based among others in robust and linear parameter-varying methods) and transferring them towards industrial implementation. Dr Jacobs PhD seminar, see figure 1, versed on the shift in the control design paradigm and presented industrially-relevant application cases. It was well-attended by faculty members, PhD candidates, and MISE students.

Starting the same afternoon of the PhD seminar, Prof Jan Swevers and Dr Laurens Jacobs also delivered a two-day short course (6 hours) on practical control design and implementation to 17 of our MISE students. The course was divided into two parts: a shorter, theoretical part recalling the principles of control design, and an applied part where the students had to run an Arduino-driven rover, identify its transfer function, and design a PID controller. The students seemed to have enjoyed this hands-on oriented course, as can be seen in the figures, and we hope it sparked their interest in the subject.

The MISE “Seminars on Advanced Topics” is a 2nd year mandatory course, but attended as well by 1st year students, that exposes the students to seminars and mini-courses on space and related fields given by internal and external speakers. In the 2023-24 course, we have had external speakers from ESA, other European universities, and several renowned Spanish companies.

The MISE director, prof. Andrés Marcos, thanks our latest speakers, prof. Jan Swevers and Dr Laurens Jacobs, for their time in off.