Flight Control & Dynamics Engineer
ZurichFull-timePosted 2mo ago
About the role
Harmattan AI is seeking a Flight Control & Dynamics Engineer to own control law design, system identification, and the transition of simulation to flight hardware across a family of high-speed autonomous airframes. The role involves balancing classical and learning-based methods, validating with flight data, and mentoring junior engineers.
Responsibilities
- System Identification: Design excitation maneuvers and fit airframe models from flight data, with quantified error bounds.
- Control Law Design & Tuning: Inner rate and attitude loops through outer position loops, with allocation, gain scheduling, and manual or automated tuning across the airframe family and flight envelope.
- Sim-to-Real: Keep the in-house simulator faithful to the identified model, so control developed in simulation transfers to the aircraft.
- Model Consumption: Turn the stability derivatives and coefficient tables from Aerodynamics into flying control.
- Flight Test & Diagnosis: Verify across simulation, SITL, and HITL, including Monte Carlo campaigns, then fly and iterate from logs.
- Mentorship: Depending on seniority, support the team by mentoring junior control and GNC engineers.
Qualifications
- A degree in aerospace, controls, robotics, or a related STEM field with strong academic record.
- Proven, hands-on system identification and control on multirotor or fixed-wing platforms, validated in flight, with depth in at least MPC, INDI, or geometric control.
- Real-time embedded control on constrained targets, split between microcontroller and companion computer.
- Familiarity with reinforcement learning and simulation-based training, and the judgment to know when a learned policy beats a classical design.
- Empirical and hardware-focused mindset, clear communicator of control/test results to engineers and stakeholders, thrives under pressure.
Skills
Required:System IdentificationControl Law Design & TuningSim-to-RealModel Consumption (Aerodynamics to Control)Flight Testing & Validation
Nice to have:Communication & Mentorship
Last updated Aug 5, 2026. Interested? Apply on the company site.
About Harmattan AI
Building the Future of Autonomous Warfare.
Building the Future of Autonomous Warfare.
Autonomous WarfareUASPayloadCounter-UAS
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