Biography/Career Progression
1992 – 1996
BEng in Mechanical Engineering, Technical University of Cluj
1996 – 2000
MEng in Design and Manufacture, University of Central Lancashire
2000 – 2004
PhD, University of Southampton
2004 – Present
Senior Lecturer, University of Southampton
improve aerodynamic performance.
Research impact
Dr András Sóbester’s work challenges
conventional thinking on engineering
design and development, and while its
primary applications so far have been
in the area of aerospace, his ideas may
have implications across engineering
and science.
Dr Sóbester’s postdoctoral research
was on a project for BAE Systems
which took him into the field of
unmanned aircraft. Here he was able
to apply his research ideas on difficultto-model systems and work on a new
unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) concept
that would have no external moving
surfaces, or flaps to control its
direction. Instead, the UAV would use a
fluidic thrust vectoring system, which
would steer the craft by modifying the
angle of the jet that comes out of the
gas turbine engine.
More recent work on high-altitude
scientific experimentation has sought
to challenge the conventions on the
methods for launching balloon-borne
scientific instruments into the
stratosphere and then retrieving them.
With support from Microsoft Research,
the ASTRA project explored the use of
low-cost, commodity devices such as
high-altitude data logging, computing
and communications platforms.
Dr Sóbester believes these systems
can be developed and deployed faster
and could also reduce the
manufacturing and logistical costs
which are barriers to some atmospheric
science missions.
Another idea is to reduce the mass of
such instrument platforms, which
would increase their likelihood of
regulatory approval and enable their
widespread use. “The use of
miniaturised systems would therefore
increase deployment flexibility and
speed, enabling scientists to observe
transient phenomena such as
thunderstorms,” he said.
Future challenges
Dr Sóbester will continue to work on
high Dr Sóbester will continue to work
on highaltitude systems and is working
with the ASTRA team to develop a
family of highaltitude balloonlaunched instrumented gliders.
One of the benefits of working
in academic research, he
said, is the ability to put
new ideas into practice
quickly: “In the aerospace
industry, the fruits of
research are often
measured over a
timescale of a decade,
whereas our
timescales are as short
as two weeks.” Rapid
manufacturing
techniques, such as 3d
printing, help this – “It
means we can get our
hands on a physical device
much faster, and thus flight
testing becomes a much
better integrated, more
organic step of the development
process,” he said.
work on climate model tuning.
“Exploiting the similarities between
modelling and optimising complex
engineering systems and optimising
models of the Earth system, we are
assisting colleagues in the climate
modelling community to reduce the
computational cost of what are, in
general, extremely expensive
simulations,” he said.
“The Royal Academy of
Engineering Research
Fellowship allows you to
concentrate on a particular
area of research, and that’s a
luxury most people don’t have
after they finish their PhDs”
Dr Andras Sobester
The work on optimisation technology is
also continuing, including the recent
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