Oliver Luderer has successfully completed his doctoral defense. His dissertation, Real-Time Capable Hybrid Load Observer for Aircraft with Distributed Propulsion, presents the development and validation of a method for estimating structural loads in advanced aircraft configurations featuring distributed propulsion and propeller–wing interactions. The proposed approach combines a linear parameter-varying flight-dynamics model with a data-driven correction to enhance computational efficiency and estimation accuracy. Its performance is demonstrated through both simulated flight tests and experimental wind tunnel campaigns, achieving accuracy comparable to state-of-the-art methods while reducing model complexity and enabling real-time application.

Our research associate Philipp Chrysalidis from our Avionics group presented his publication titled "A Single-Source-of-Truth Approach for Automatic ED-247 Gateway Configuration in Hybrid Testing Through UCoF" at the AvioSE26 workshop in Bern this week. UCoF is a model-based approach to manage the increasing complexity of computational demands in avionics configurations. Acting as a single source of truth throughout the development process, UCoF enables continuous configuration not only of real hardware but also of virtual and hybrid test environments. Want to learn more? Check out the UCoF repository: https://gitlab.com/ucof

Last week, we held our internal annual #FST research conference. Each research associate presented their research topic in a short five-minute pitch, followed by an open discussion. These sessions are a great opportunity to learn about the work of our colleagues across the institute, identify synergies, and exchange ideas on future research directions.