Dr Felipe Gonzalez

Dr Felipe Gonzalez is a Lecturer at the School of Engineering Systems and the Australian Research Centre for Aerospace Automation (ARCAA) at QUT. He holds a BEng (Mech)  and a PhD in the field of Multi-disciplinary Design Optimization in Aerospace  Systems.  Felipe actively researches in the fields of bio-inspired optimization, UAV path planning, design, command and control, and complex systems. Felipe is part of a team that has attracted over $4.5M of funding for fundamental and applied research from external competitive sources and has published 19 Journal papers and over 50 internationally peer-reviewed articles. He co-leads the CRC National Plant Bio-security Spores Trap project  and the Green Falcon Solar Powered UAV for airborne survey tasks . He is a Chartered Professional Engineer, Engineers Australia, NPER, and member of professional organizations including the RAeS, IEEE and AIAA. He is also an EDN, iENA Innovation award winner and holds a Private Pilot Licence . Broad area of research: Smart Systems.    Main research areas:Within the broad field of Aerospace Optimisation research, Dr. Luis Felipe Gonzalez Toro and his research team have defined two main research areas:

• Unmanned Aerial Systems
• Advanced numerical tools for multidisciplinary design and optimisation in Engineering andAerospace
• Bioinspired multiobjective optimisation

Unmanned Aerial Systems Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) are becoming important military and commercial assets for diverse applications. Ranging from reconnaissance and surveillance, to aid relief and monitoring tasks. These vehicles are now available in a broad size and capability range and are intended to fly in regions where the presence of onboard human pilots is either too risky or unnecessary. Civilian applications for UAS technology are quickly emerging as a large and lucrative new aerospace market. The multi-physics aspects of these vehicles can benefit from alternative approaches for design and optimisation.  Advanced numerical tools for multidisciplinary design and optimisation Optimisation is an integrated part in Aerospace engineering, from design to flight control guidance.  In aerospace engineering design and optimisation, the engineer is usually presented with a problem which involves not only one single objective but also numerous objectives and multi-physics environments. Hence a systematic approach, which accounts for the interaction and trade-offs between multiple objectives, variables, constraints and disciplines, is required. This approach is called Multi-objective (MO) and Multidisciplinary Design Optimisation (MDO). Capturing the solution of a MO and MDO problem in aeronautics requires the use of high performance computing and fidelity analysis, CFD and FEA computations which are time consuming, and involve the evaluation of candidate solutions of non-linear equations with several millions of mesh points and the computations of prohibitive gradients. There are different approaches New algorithms such as Evolution Algorithms (EAs) are good for complex cases problems where the search space can be multi-modal, non-convex or discontinuous, with multiple local minima and with noise. There are also problems where one looks for a set of Pareto solutions, a Nash equilibrium point or other solutions like ones issued from Stackelberg games. Optimisation techniques can be combined with approximation techniques for expensive computations, for multi-fidelity analysis, for complex MDO problems incorporating additional compatibility constraints and variables into the system and in applications with complicated search spaces where the design space dimension varies.   Grants Funding Received as part of a team over $4.1 M in research funding since year 2006. see e Experience section  for more details on the projects.  Other Awards and recognitions

• Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Excellence – 2011
• VC’s Performance Fund Award -2010
• EDN Innovation award 2009
• Studentship, PhD Aeronautical Engineering, The University of Sydney.
• Scholarship M. Eng (RES) Aeronautical Engineering, The University of Sydney.
• Honours Degree Faculty of Mechanical Engineering Best Graduate Point Average.
• Pertaining to the Professional Excellence Formation Program (PEP).
• Drill Machine Design and Construction winner in the category of science (V Show of Engineering Projects.

Career history 2006 – Present: Lecturer in School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, QUT 2005-2006: Lecturer, School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering, The University of Sydney 2005: Research Associate, School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering, The University of Sydney 2002-2005: Teaching Assistant, School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering, The University of Sydney 2000-2001: Project/ Structures Engineer, Tampa Airlines. 1997-2001: Project Engineer INDISA SA. Selected Keynote/Invited Talks 2006, 2008, 2010 : Von Karman Institute (VKI) Lecture Series, Introduction to Multidisciplinary to Optimization and Multidisciplinary Design: Applications to Aeronautics and Turbomachinery