George Zogopoulos

I am an electrical engineer by training, with a diploma from the National Technical University of Athens. Power transmission networks and large mains motors never took, though — what held my attention was computer science, microelectronics and control theory. That, and the fact that I got some exposure to RC flight before life got busy.

Wanting to go deeper into control theory and aerial robotics, I did a PhD on fault diagnosis and compensation for uncrewed aircraft. For seven years I worked on automated methods for exploiting information redundancy, building diagnostic signals, and deriving alternative navigation and control algorithms — writing the software, soldering the electronics, building the testbeds and flying the experiments myself. It was hard work and I would not trade it for anything. Ten publications later I was ready to do something else.

Academia did not appeal, so I moved to industry and got a closer look at how uncrewed aircraft actually get built. Working for a Dutch UAS manufacturer taught me what it takes to design and produce a new aircraft, test it, carry it through CAA authorisation and support it after release. It also convinced me that good tooling — software and hardware both — repays its cost almost immediately.

These days I run Controlled Ascent, a UAS controls and compliance engineering consultancy. That site is the professional one; this is where I keep everything else — notes, things I have been reading, and whatever I happen to be building at the time.