We are seeking a highly skilled and motivated engineer to join our team to implement and analyze a dynamic soaring algorithm for autonomous fixed-wing UAV platforms.
Dynamic soaring is an advanced flight technique that extracts energy from the wind.
The successful candidate will be responsible for translating the algorithm into a high-fidelity MATLAB Simulink environment, validating its performance across the full envelope of weather and wind conditions, and supporting flight-test integration on physical UAV hardware.
This role sits at the intersection of flight dynamics, control systems, atmospheric physics, and embedded systems engineering — ideal for someone who enjoys taking an algorithm from theory to simulation to airborne hardware.
Key Skills for This Role
MATLABSimulinkAerospace BlocksetSimulink Control DesignStateflowEmbedded Coder
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About Alteon
The Wright Brothers gave humanity flight, Alteon exists to give humanity (almost) perpetual flight. Our mission is to build the world’s highest endurance aircrafts – ones that can fly for up to ~417 days at a time.
We are a small, young team driven by pushing the limits of what’s possible – we don’t like settling for good enough. We are here to build the best technology possible, the best airplane possible, to do the best engineering possible. Limited only by the laws of physics.
About the role
We are seeking a highly skilled and motivated engineer to join our team to implement and analyze a dynamic soaring algorithm for autonomous fixed-wing UAV platforms. Dynamic soaring is an advanced flight technique that extracts energy from the wind. The successful candidate will be responsible for translating the algorithm into a high-fidelity MATLAB Simulink environment, validating its performance across the full envelope of weather and wind conditions, and supporting flight-test integration on physical UAV hardware.
This role sits at the intersection of flight dynamics, control systems, atmospheric physics, and embedded systems engineering — ideal for someone who enjoys taking an algorithm from theory to simulation to airborne hardware.
Key responsibilities
Implement the dynamic soaring algorithm in MATLAB / Simulink , integrating it with a full 6-DOF nonlinear aircraft model .
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Develop and validate aerodynamic, propulsion, mass-properties, and environmental sub-models, including stochastic wind-shear, gust, and turbulence models (e.g., Dryden, von Kármán).
Analyze algorithm performance and robustness across a wide range of weather and wind conditions — varying wind gradient profiles, turbulence intensities, ridge/shear/thermal soaring regimes, and edge-case atmospheric phenomena.
Design, tune, and benchmark guidance, navigation, and control (GNC) algorithms that support the dynamic soaring trajectory (energy management, periodic orbit tracking, optimal cycle planning).
Perform Monte Carlo simulations, sensitivity analyses, and stability/robustness studies.
Drive systems engineering activities: requirements capture, interface control documents, V&V planning, traceability, and trade studies.
Integrate the algorithm with onboard flight computers and autopilots via standard communication protocols (MAVLink, UART, SPI, I²C, CAN, UDP/TCP, RS-232/422/485).
Support build, bench-test, HIL/SIL test, and flight-test activities of fixed-wing UAV prototypes, including iterative debugging, root-cause analysis, and design rectification.
Document models, results, and design decisions clearly for both internal review and external reporting.
Required qualifications
MATLAB / Simulink — strong hands-on experience building, debugging, and optimizing simulation models; familiarity with Aerospace Blockset, Simulink Control Design, Stateflow, and code generation (Embedded Coder/Simulink Coder) is highly desirable.
6-DOF Modeling — demonstrated experience implementing six-degrees-of-freedom rigid-body aircraft models, including equations of motion in body and inertial frames, quaternion/Euler kinematics, aerodynamic force/moment build-up, and propulsion modeling.
Systems Engineering — practical experience with the full V-cycle: requirements decomposition, architecture definition, interface management, verification and validation, and configuration management.
Control Algorithms — solid grounding in classical and modern control (PID, LQR/LQG, gain-scheduling, MPC, adaptive/nonlinear control), with applied experience tuning autopilots or guidance laws for aerial vehicles.
UAV / Fixed-Wing Hands-On Experience — proven track record of building, integrating, bench-testing, flight-testing, troubleshooting, and rectifying fixed-wing UAV systems (airframe, avionics stack, sensors, actuators, ground station).
Desirable skills and knowledge
Strong understanding of aerodynamics and flight mechanics : lift/drag polars, stability derivatives, longitudinal and lateral-directional dynamics, trim and linearization.
Knowledge of atmospheric physics relevant to soaring: boundary-layer wind profiles, wind shear, ridge lift, thermals, gust spectra, and weather data sources (METAR, NWP, reanalysis datasets).
Familiarity with optimal control and trajectory optimization tools (GPOPS-II, CasADi, ACADO, PSOPT) for dynamic soaring cycle generation.
Experience with state estimation : Kalman filters (EKF, UKF), complementary filters, and sensor fusion (IMU, GNSS, air-data, magnetometer).
Familiarity with open-source autopilots ( PX4, ArduPilot ) and ground control software (QGroundControl, Mission Planner).
Experience with HIL/SIL test rigs , real-time targets (Speedgoat, Pixhawk, NI), and instrumentation.
What you will work on
A high-fidelity simulation environment capturing aircraft dynamics, sensors, actuators, and the atmosphere.
Algorithms that allow UAVs to harvest energy from the wind and stay aloft for extended durations.
Hardware-in-the-loop test setups and real flight campaigns where simulation meets reality.
A multidisciplinary team where your work spans physics, mathematics, software, and airborne hardware.
