About

The Aerospace Vehicle Systems group works at the frontier of what is possible in the design of vehicles that operate in the Earth’s atmosphere and underwater.

The focus is on unmanned systems where the primary objective of the vehicle is a sensor platform rather than transport of people or goods. We work with vehicles across the size range from sub-1g insect inspired flapping wing vehicles flying in the lab, to 60kg jet-powered aircraft flown at test range sites. 

Advanced vehicle electronic systems for navigation, sensing and control used to be driven by military development programmes. Today, the technology is driven by developments in consumer electronics, with the capability for a fully functional autopilot built into most mobile phones.

We work with industrial primes (research and development of novel flight control actuator systems), government agencies (use of drones for monitoring landfill gas emissions), Earth scientists (Volcano monitoring) and SMEs (testing and demonstrating new products or services on board our platforms).

The area of expertise has strong overlap with the general area of robotics and our team closely shares ideas and facilities with other engineers and scientists in this field at the university.  

Meet the team

Find all the contacts you need for our academic staff and researchers in Aerospace Vehicle Systems.