AUTONOMOUS AEROSPACE & RESILIENT GNC

Manan
Dua

Computer Engineering researcher building and flight-testing autonomous aerospace vehicles, embedded avionics, and resilient navigation algorithms.

ACADEMIC STANDING
GPA 3.9 / 4.0
First Class Honours (85.8% Avg)
PUBLICATIONS
2 IEEE Papers
SAIROB & ComNetSat 2026
LEADERSHIP
UOBRPL
Director & Electronics Co-Lead
View Builds ↓Research Papers ↓View CV (PDF)

PHASE 02 · LOCOMOTION & AVIONICS

About

CUMULATIVE GPA
3.9 / 4.0

First Class Honours (85.8% weighted average across 120 credits)

manan@uobrpl:~$

> System_Status: Online · Autonomous Aerospace & Embedded GNC

> Philosophy: BUILD. TEST. LEARN. RESEARCH.

I am a Computer Engineering undergraduate at the University of Birmingham (2024–2027) with hands-on experience developing physical aerospace platforms, embedded avionics, and resilient navigation algorithms.

As Director and Electronics Co-lead of UOBRPL (University of Birmingham Rocket Propulsion Labs), I lead a multidisciplinary aerospace team developing high-power sounding rockets (MATCHA, INVICTUS-II), competition CanSat payloads (SUGAR), and autonomous planetary exploration rovers (NOVARIUM-II). Under our leadership, our rocketry team was awarded the Best Innovation Award at national UKSEDS / MachX competitions.

Beyond campus rocketry, I completed an engineering project traineeship at Engenius Lab, where I contributed to drone flight computer circuit architecture, high-speed SPI sensor bring-up, and electrical noise validation.

My central research ambition is to formulate resilient state estimation and autonomous control algorithms that are compiled onto bare-metal embedded avionics, subjected to harsh physical vibration and sensor degradation, and validated through real flight testing.

PHASE 03 · PEER-REVIEWED RESEARCH

Publications

First-author peer-reviewed manuscripts with experimental bench testing and sounding rocket flight validation.

MANUSCRIPT 01/Accepted — Oral Presentation/Best Paper Award Nominee

Passive Tape-Spring Landing Stabilization and Solar Deployment Dynamics for Atmospheric Micro-Probes: A Dual-Node Flight Architecture

Manan Dua (Lead Author) • IEEE International Conference on System-Integrated Intelligence and Robotics (IEEE SAIROB 2026)

Proposes a zero-power, thin-shell elastic strain energy deployment mechanism for atmospheric planetary micro-probes. Eliminates motorized actuators (saving >120g mass penalty) using 4 spring-steel outriggers that expand the critical rollover tipping angle from 33.7° to 65.2° (+93.5% stability increase) in 48.2 ms upon 1050m apogee ejection. Validated across 20 high-speed camera optical bench trials, 15 outdoor sloped drop tests, and a sub-orbital sounding rocket flight (+13.2g boost).

KEY CONTRIBUTIONS:
01Thin-shell elastic strain energy storage model (U_strain = 0.42 J) achieving 48.2 ± 3.1 ms snap-through deployment with 0W power draw.
02Touchdown rollover stance expansion expanding critical tipping angle by +93.5% (33.7° -> 65.2°), eliminating landing tip-overs.
03Integrated photovoltaic energy harvesting yielding +2.60 W net surplus to sustain recovery beacon tracking indefinitely.
48.2 ms
Snap-Through Deployment
+93.5%
Tipping Angle Stability (65.2°)
+2.60 W
Net Solar Charging Surplus
1,050 m
Sub-Orbital Apogee Reached
MANUSCRIPT 02/Under Peer Review

Mitigating Near-Field RF Desensitization in Miniaturized Satellite Payloads: A Deterministic TDM and Multi-Tier Avionics Architecture

Manan Dua (Lead Author) • IEEE International Conference on Communication, Networks and Satellite (IEEE ComNetSat 2026)

Investigates reactive near-field electromagnetic coupling in miniaturized aerospace payloads (Ø80mm) where co-located +20 dBm telemetry transmitters exceed the 1dB compression point of GNSS LNAs, inducing an 18.2 dB C/N0 lock-loss collapse. Implements a deterministic 500 ms firmware Time-Division Multiplexing (TDM) architecture and active 9-clock I2C fault-recovery engine that eliminates RF desense with 0.0g mass overhead.

KEY CONTRIBUTIONS:
01Near-field radianlength coupling model quantifying LNA gain saturation (coupled power -13.28 dBm vs P_1dB -15 dBm).
02Deterministic 500 ms TDM framing engine eliminating 18.2 dB desense without bulky RF cavity filters (0.0g mass overhead).
03Active 9-clock I2C bus clear routine achieving 100% recovery from sensor lockups across 50 high-G stress trials.
0.0 dB
In-Slot GPS Desensitization
500 ms
Deterministic TDM Frame
100%
I2C Recovery (50/50 Trials)
≥ 8 Sats
Continuous GPS Lock

PHASE 04 · RESEARCH PROGRAM & CORE THRUSTS

Research Directions

Six investigative thrusts bridging state estimation, real-time deterministic computing, fault-tolerant autonomy, and physical flight testbeds.

01

Resilient Onboard Navigation for Autonomous Aerospace Systems

Research into robust onboard navigation systems for autonomous aerospace vehicles operating under uncertain, degraded, or partially unavailable sensor conditions. This involves integrating measurements from IMUs, GPS/GNSS, barometers, cameras, and onboard sensors; developing resilient state-estimation and sensor-fusion architectures; and experimentally evaluating navigation performance under GPS outages, sensor noise, latency, vibration, and real-world disturbances.

Autonomous SystemsAerospace EngineeringNavigationSensor FusionEmbedded Systems
WHAT I BRING:

• Experience developing embedded aerospace systems and flight electronics

• Hands-on experience with IMUs, GPS, barometers, microcontrollers, telemetry, and onboard data logging

02

Fault-Tolerant Autonomy for Aerospace Vehicles

Investigation of how autonomous aerospace vehicles can detect, diagnose, and respond to sensor, actuator, communication, or subsystem failures while maintaining safe operation. Research explores fault detection and isolation (FDI), adaptive or reconfigurable autonomy, redundancy, degraded operating modes, and experimental validation of fault-tolerant architectures on real aerospace platforms.

Autonomous SystemsFault-Tolerant SystemsAerospace EngineeringControlEmbedded Systems
WHAT I BRING:

• Experience designing and integrating multi-sensor aerospace systems

• Practical understanding of failure modes encountered in embedded and flight hardware

03

Embedded Avionics and Real-Time Computing for Autonomous Flight

Research into embedded computing architectures that enable autonomous aerospace vehicles to perform sensing, state estimation, decision-making, and control in real time under constraints on computation, power, memory, latency, and reliability. This involves hardware/software co-design, real-time sensor processing, onboard computing architectures, deterministic scheduling, and implementation of autonomy algorithms on resource-constrained flight computers.

Computer EngineeringEmbedded SystemsAvionicsReal-Time SystemsAutonomous Vehicles
WHAT I BRING:

• BEng background in Computer Engineering (GPA 3.9 / 4.0)

• Experience programming STM32 and ESP32-based embedded systems

04

Experimental Autonomous Aerial Systems and Flight Testing

Research focused on the design, integration, and experimental validation of autonomous aerial vehicles. Developing complete experimental platforms combining onboard sensing, embedded computation, navigation, guidance, and control, followed by ground and flight testing to evaluate system performance under realistic environmental and operational conditions.

Aerial RoboticsAutonomous SystemsAerospace EngineeringFlight DynamicsControlExperimental Robotics
WHAT I BRING:

• Extensive hands-on experience with student aerospace projects and experimental platforms

• Experience designing and integrating rocket avionics, CanSat payloads, and autonomous robotic systems

05

Onboard Perception and GPS-Denied Navigation for Autonomous Vehicles

Research into how autonomous aerospace vehicles can use onboard cameras and sensors to perceive their environment and estimate position when conventional navigation sources (GPS/GNSS) are unavailable or unreliable. Explores visual-inertial navigation, onboard perception, localization, sensor fusion, and experimental evaluation of autonomous navigation in GPS-denied environments.

RoboticsComputer VisionAutonomous SystemsAerospace EngineeringNavigation
WHAT I BRING:

• Existing experience integrating GPS, IMUs, barometers, and onboard computing systems

• Experience collecting and logging real sensor data from aerospace platforms

06

Hardware–Software Co-Design for Reliable Autonomous Aerospace Systems

Investigation of how autonomous aerospace systems can be designed holistically across hardware and software to achieve reliable, real-time operation. Examining the interaction between sensor selection, onboard computing, algorithmic complexity, communication, power consumption, latency, and system reliability, with experimental validation on physical platforms.

Computer EngineeringRoboticsEmbedded SystemsAutonomous SystemsAerospace Engineering
WHAT I BRING:

• Strong Computer Engineering and embedded-systems foundation

• Experience designing complete hardware/software aerospace systems

PHASE 05 · PHYSICAL SYSTEMS & BUILDS

Builds

High-power sounding rockets, CanSat atmospheric payloads, custom STM32 flight computers, and planetary rovers.

BUILD 01/2025–2026/Active Development

MATCHA

High-Power Sounding Rocket (~2 km Target Altitude)

MATCHA is a flagship high-power sounding rocket engineered within UOBRPL targeting a 2 km apogee. The project encompasses rigorous multidisciplinary engineering across aerodynamic modeling, carbon-fiber composite fabrication, and a custom fault-tolerant avionics architecture designed to withstand severe acceleration, vibration, and thermal environments.

  1. 01Transonic pressure wave mitigation: Barometric sensors can register false pressure drops during high-speed flight; solved via moving-window outlier rejection and Kalman filter blending with IMU vertical acceleration.
  2. 02High vibration spectral noise: Rocket motor burn generates broad-band vibration that corrupts raw accelerometer data; addressed through sensor dampening and low-pass FIR filtering in firmware.
C++STM32Fusion 360OpenRocketLoRa SX1262SPI / I2CPCB DesignComposite Airframe
~2.0 km
Target Altitude
Carbon Fiber Composite
Structure
Dual-Deploy Pyro
Avionics Bay
868 MHz
Telemetry Link
BUILD 02/2025–2026/Field Tested

SUGAR CanSat

High-Altitude Atmospheric Profiling & Telemetry Payload

SUGAR is an aerospace CanSat payload engineered for sounding rocket deployment and atmospheric profiling. Encapsulated within strict soda-can form-factor constraints, the payload autonomously collects 6-DOF inertial metrics, barometric altitude, multi-zone temperatures, and GPS position, streaming high-rate binary telemetry to a custom ground receiver while logging full flight datasets to onboard flash.

  1. 01SD Card Write Latency Spikes: MicroSD cards occasionally block for 50-100 ms during internal flash block re-allocation. Solved by implementing an asynchronous ring buffer that decouples the telemetry loop from flash writes.
  2. 02Thermal Gradient Calibration: Rapid descent through cold air masses alters sensor zero-offsets; implemented thermal calibration lookup tables for barometric pressure.
C/C++STM32F103868 MHz RFMPU6050BMP280GPSEmbedded SystemsGround Station
10 Hz
Telemetry Rate
< 350 grams
Mass
12 DoF + Env
Sensory Channels
< 1.2 %
Packet Loss
BUILD 03/2025–2026/Bench Validated

Custom Rocket Flight Computer & Avionics

Experimental Real-Time Avionics Board with Sensor Fusion

An experimental, custom-designed aerospace flight computer developed to investigate real-time sensor fusion, inertial measurement unit (IMU) drift characterization, and robust event detection under severe rocket flight conditions. The system combines multi-range accelerometers, high-precision barometric pressure sensing, high-speed flash logging, and isolated pyrotechnic deployment circuits.

  1. 01Accelerometer Bias Drift & Vibration Noise: High-frequency rocket motor harmonics alias into the low-frequency estimation band; solved by high-rate sampling (1 kHz internal ODR) and hardware sinc filters before feeding the 200 Hz state estimator.
  2. 02Ground Bounce & Power Sags During Pyro Firing: E-match ignition acts as a near short-circuit for 50 ms; mitigated using independent power paths, Schottky isolation diodes, and capacitor reserves.
CSTM32Kalman FilteringSensor FusionPCB DesignSPI / I2CEmbedded AvionicsHIL Simulation
200 Hz
Sampling Rate
Kalman Filter 1D/3D
Sensor Fusion
2 Isolated
Pyro Channels
> 150 ms
Brownout Buffer
BUILD 04/2025–2026/Field Tested

INVICTUS-II

Mid-Power Competition Rocket & Multi-Mission Ground Station

INVICTUS-II is a mid-power competition rocket developed for the UKSEDS National Rocketry Championship (MACH-26) by UOBRPL. The vehicle served as an end-to-end testbed for our integrated electronics stack, dual-deployment recovery systems, and a multi-protocol ground station server combining Raspberry Pi hardware, SQLite telemetry caching, and live browser dashboards.

  1. 01Ground station serial port buffering under packet bursts: High-rate bursts caused buffer overflows on the receiver serial bus; resolved using dedicated worker threads and ring buffers.
  2. 02Recovery shock cord entanglement: High ejection pressures could snag wiring harnesses; redesigned internal bulkhead routing with sealed conduit tubes.
C++STM32Raspberry PiNode.jsSocket.ioSQLiteFusion 360UKSEDS NRC
UKSEDS NRC 2025–26
Competition
Raspberry Pi 4B Server
Ground Base
Dual Backup SD + Radio
Data Logging
Best Innovation Award
Award

PHASE 06 · EMPIRICAL LAB MEMORANDA

Lab Notes

Empirical bench test records, high-speed camera optical data, strain energy models, and firmware fault-recovery routines.

LN-01 • 2026.04.18
IEEE SAIROB 2026 (Best Paper Award Nominee)

Thin-Shell Elastic Strain Energy Storage & Snap-Through Bifurcation Dynamics

Stored 0.42 J of elastic strain energy across 4 spring-steel tape blades to achieve 48.2 ms snap-through deployment upon apogee ejection with 0W electrical power and zero motor mass.

MEASURED RESULT:
0.42 Joules
Stored Strain Energy
LN-02 • 2026.05.02
IEEE SAIROB 2026 (Best Paper Award Nominee)

Touchdown Rollover Dynamics, Tipping Angle Expansion & Monolithic PLA Bulkhead

Expanded critical tipping angle by +93.5% (33.7° to 65.2°) through passive 4-arm stance expansion, validated with zero rollover failures across 15 sloped drop tests from 10m height.

MEASURED RESULT:
33.7°
Undeployed Tipping Angle
LN-03 • 2026.05.20
IEEE SAIROB 2026

Photovoltaic Energy Harvesting Budgeting & Dual-Node Flight Telemetry

Achieved +2.60 W net charging surplus under ambient sunlight, sustaining tracking beacon indefinitely; validated during sounding rocket launch to 1050m apogee under +13.2g boost.

MEASURED RESULT:
3.45 Watts
Solar Power Harvested
LN-04 • 2026.06.12
IEEE COMNETSAT 2026

Near-Field Radianlength Coupling & GNSS LNA Gain Saturation in Miniaturized Satellites

Quantified 18.2 dB C/N0 GPS collapse caused by reactive near-field inductive coupling (d = 35mm < r_NF = 55mm) driving active GNSS LNA into -13.28 dBm gain compression.

MEASURED RESULT:
55.0 mm
Near-Field Radianlength (r_NF)
LN-05 • 2026.06.28
IEEE COMNETSAT 2026

Deterministic Time-Division Multiplexing (TDM) Framing Architecture for Zero-Desense Navigation

Engineered a deterministic 500 ms 3-slot TDM firmware framing scheme providing 100% elimination of RF desense (0.0 dB degradation) with zero added mass overhead.

MEASURED RESULT:
0.0 dB
In-Slot GNSS Desensitization
LN-06 • 2026.07.15
IEEE COMNETSAT 2026

Active 9-Clock I2C Bus Fault Recovery & Multi-Tier Aerospace Avionics Power Isolation

Engineered bit-banged 9-clock I2C bus clear routine achieving 100% recovery from sensor lockups across 50 high-G stress trials; isolated switching RF transients from sensitive 3.3V logic.

MEASURED RESULT:
100% (50/50 Trials)
Bus Fault Recovery Success Rate

PHASE 07 · INTERACTIVE MISSION TESTBED

Test Your Flight Computer

Fly the MATCHA sounding rocket through space turbulence, dodge asteroids, and capture blue telemetry data packets.

MATCHA
|
LVL 1 · TROPOSPHERE (1x)
ALT: 0 m
SCORE: 0
x3

MATCHA Flight Testbed

Pilot the high-power rocket through 5 progressive atmospheric stages. Dodge high-velocity debris and capture blue telemetry beacons!

CONTROLS: Left / Right Arrows • A / D • Touch / Mouse Drag
Speed scales dynamically across 5 stages: Troposphere → Stratosphere → Mesosphere → Thermosphere → Orbital Apogee
COLLECT BLUE BEACONS FOR +150x LEVEL PTS

PHASE 08 · CAPABILITY MATRIX

Capability Matrix

Embedded Systems & Microcontrollers
  • STM32 (ARM Cortex-M)
  • ESP32 / ESP32-S3
  • Raspberry Pi (RPi 4B)
  • Arduino / AVR
  • C
  • C++
  • Python
  • C#
Avionics, Sensors & Hardware Design
  • Embedded Electronics & PCB Design
  • Sensor Integration (I2C / SPI / UART)
  • IMU & Inertial Sensing
  • Barometric Pressure Sensing
  • GPS / GNSS Integration
  • Power Electronics & Brownout Mitigation
  • Pyrotechnic Firing Circuits
  • Rapid Prototyping & Fabrication
Telemetry, RF & Ground Station Infrastructure
  • LoRa 868 MHz (SX1262)
  • 868 MHz RF Transceivers
  • Binary Packet Serialization & CRC-16
  • Ground Station Architecture
  • Real-Time Telemetry Dashboards
  • Data Logging & Black Box Storage
Aerospace Modeling, CAD & Systems Engineering
  • Autodesk Fusion 360
  • SolidWorks
  • CATIA Magic
  • OpenRocket
  • RocketSim
  • Systems Engineering & Safety Gates
  • Experimental Testing & Validation
  • Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) Testing

PHASE 09 · COMMUNICATIONS & UPLINK

Get in touch

Open to academic discussions, research collaborations, and technical inquiries in autonomous aerospace systems and GNC.

PRIMARY INQUIRY CHANNEL
manandua28@gmail.com
Send Email
github.com/MananDua28
linkedin.com/in/manan-dua-76397b262
TIMEZONE: UTC+4View CV (PDF) →