Designing flight-control logic around a human-carrying safety case.
The GoAero challenge centres on compact, rapidly deployable aircraft that can reach places where roads and runways cannot. For a manned multicopter, control decisions must be made with explicit attention to redundancy, degraded operation and safe test progression.
Redundant propulsion
Eight actuators create additional control-allocation options, but also a larger space of nominal and degraded cases to evaluate.
Human mission
Emergency-response scenarios put safety margins, predictable behaviour and verification discipline ahead of spectacle.
Control allocation and validation for safety-critical flight.
Control-allocation development
Developed allocation logic that maps vehicle-level force and moment requests across the octacopter’s actuator set.
Simulation validation
Built and evaluated control workflows in MATLAB and the UAV Toolbox before moving toward flight hardware.
Mission-oriented control
Contributed robust strategies for emergency-response profiles with attention to stability, performance and safety margins.
Flight-test support
Supported the progression from simulation toward Pixhawk-based integration and practical aircraft testing.
Build confidence in layers before expanding the envelope.
Model
Represent vehicle dynamics, actuator geometry and achievable force/moment combinations.
Allocate
Distribute control demand across eight propulsors while respecting constraints.
Validate
Exercise nominal and safety-relevant cases in MATLAB UAV Toolbox workflows.
Integrate
Move verified logic toward Pixhawk hardware and controlled flight-test activity.
One flight-control contribution inside a broad aircraft team.
Aqib Habib
Control allocation, simulation validation, mission-oriented control and flight-test support.
Agustina Ulloa Romero & Pranit Sonigra
HORYZN
Contributors across controls, structures, propulsion, electronics, manufacturing, operations and programme management.
Competition progress backed by a credible technical programme.
HORYZN advanced through the first and second stages of the GoAero Safety Challenge. The control work established simulation-tested allocation and integration workflows for the manned octacopter while the wider team developed Isar Falke as an emergency-response vehicle.