Autonomous Systems At Moog (Talk)
- Gonzalo Rey (Dr.)
- Moog Inc.
The talk will briefly introduce Moog Inc. It will then describe Moog's view of its value proposition to robotics and autonomous systems. If robots and autonomous system are to achieve their enormous potential to positively impact the world economy, the technology has to achieve equivalent the levels of robustness, availability, reliability and safety that are expected from current solutions. The commercial aircraft industry has seen an order of magnitude increase in machine complexity in the last fifty years in order to reach the highest ever levels of cost per seat-mile and safety in its history. Today one can travel cheaper and safer than ever. Moog believes that there are opportunities to apply the methodologies and principles that enabled the lowest ever costs while at the same time managing the highest ever complexity and safety levels for aircraft to robotics and autonomous systems. The talk will briefly describe the type of approaches used in aircraft to achieve such low levels of failures that are hard to comprehend (or believe for those not familiar with the engineering approach), while at the same time, relying on low cost commercial off the shelf components in electronics, materials and manufacturing processes. Next the talk will move onto a couple of active research projects Moog is engaged in with ETHZ and IIT. Finally, it will give an overview of an emerging research effort in certification of advanced (robot) control laws.
Biography: Dr. Gonzalo Rey is the Director of Research and Technology for the Aircraft Group, Moog Inc., a worldwide designer, manufacturer, and integrator of precision motion control products and systems. Moog’s high-performance systems control military and commercial aircraft, satellites and space vehicles, launch vehicles, missiles, industrial machinery, wind energy, marine applications, and medical equipment. Gonzalo began his career as a Staff Engineer at the Moog Aircraft Group Technology Center between 1991 and 1996. Between 1996 and 2004 he was Department Head at the United Technologies Research Center and later an Engineering Fellow in the area of Dynamic Systems and Control at Pratt and Whitney, a United Technologies Company that makes aircraft engines. Gonzalo returned to Moog Aircraft Group in 2004 as Chief Engineer for Systems and Software where he was responsible for technology, product development, and airworthiness. In 2008, Gonzalo became Director of Engineering and Technology for the Aircraft Group with design and test centers in the United States, United Kingdom and India. As head of engineering, Gonzalo oversaw the development and certification of the highest number of aircraft flight control systems in Moog's history including those for the Boeing 787 and Airbus A350. In his current role as the Director of Research and Technology Gonzalo is responsible for technology development and product innovation. In addition to the legacy technology roadmaps, the current future technology innovation themes are Asset Tracking, Robotics and Autonomous Systems and Advanced and Additive Manufacturing. Education: Bachelor in Electrical Engineering (1986) from Instituto Tecnologico Buenos Aires and Masters in Electrical Engineering (1989), Masters in Mathematics (1990) and PhD in Electrical Engineering (1991) from Cornell University.