Nicola MIMMO, birthyear 1983, currently is a researcher (RTD-A) at the Department of Electrical, Electronic and Information Engineering of the University of Bologna.
Teaching activities
Since a.a. 2017-2018 he teaches “Ground Vehicle Dynamics” (3FCU) and “Applied Automatic Controls” (6CFU) at the faculty of Advanced Automotive Electronics Engineering of the University of Bologna.
He taught, as a tutor, “Automatic Controls” and “Automation of Industrial Processes” at the faculties of Electronic Engineering and Biomedical Engineering of the University of Bologna (2009-2016).
Research activities
He is a member of the “Centre for Research on Complex Automated Systems” of the University of Bologna.
He had research fellow positions in the context of the European projects SHERPA (2019-2020), http://www.sherpa-fp7-project.eu/sherpa/, and AirBorne (2015-2018) https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/780960/it. He focused on the design of robust flight control laws for quadcopters for search and rescue operating in harsh environments. Sensor-driven planning and guidance algorithms specialised in finding avalanches victims were developed.
Moreover, he had a research fellow in the context of a National Project PRIN2008 “Development of a CUAV (Civil Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) demonstrator” (2009-2011) for the design, implementation and test of a flight parameters data log system. The activities also focused on the design, realisation and test of hardware and software, as well as on the building and certification of an ultralight test aircraft.
Work Experiences
He worked at Airbus (2014), https://www.airbus.com, for the development and test of flight control laws.
For the years 2006-2007, he worked at Piaggio Aero-Industries, http://www.piaggioaerospace.it/, as Hazard Assessment and Risk Analysis specialist with a focus on fuel and cabin pressure systems. Moreover, for the same company, he worked, as an aerodynamics specialist, for the aircraft preliminary design.
Education and Training
He obtained a PhD in Automation and Operational Research (2012 - 2015) from the University of Bologna. His studies focused on the design of robust control systems, fault-tolerant controls, robust fault detection and isolation, extremum seeking optimisation algorithms, observation and motion planning for autonomous vehicles.
In 2008, he participated in the 1-year master on Innovative Maintenance Methods held at “Centro Italiano Ricerche Aerospaziali” (CIRA), https://www.cira.it/en. This master focused on aircraft maintenance procedure innovation and dealt with computer vision-based approaches to support maintainers and reduce the impact of human factors in aircraft accidents.
In 2008, he attended the course “EASA Part 145 approved Maintenance Organizations” held by LUFTHANSA TECHNIK, Hamburg – Germany.
He received the Aerospace Engineering Master Degree (2007-2009) from the University of Bologna. The main topics were about the design of aircraft: aerodynamics, mechanics, actuation systems, sensors, propulsion. Navigation filters, flight parameter estimation.
Patents
At Airbus (https://www.airbus.com/), he developed and patented flight control systems (Patent n. US-20160107762-A1).
Reviewer Service
He serves as a reviewer for the following journals: Automatica, IEEE Transaction on Mechatronics, IEEE Control System Technology, Control Engineering Practice, IEEE Transactions on Man, Systems and Cybernetics, IEEE Transactions on Automatic Controls, IEEE Transactions on Robotics, IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, IEEE Control Systems Letters
International Activities
He served as an associate editor for contributed papers for the Workshop on Aerospace Control Education, WACE 2021, September 8-10, 2021.
He organised the conference invited sessions
-“Automatic Control in Aerospace Engineering Education" within the 21st IFAC World Congress, 2020, IFAC 2020
-“Automatic Control in Aerospace Engineering Education” for the 21st IFAC Symposium on Automatic Control in Aerospace - ACA 2019
-“Advances in Spacecraft Reliable Control Systems for Satellite” within the 21st IFAC Symposium on Automatic Control in Aerospace - ACA 2019
He was a member of the “Programme Committee” of the “8th European Workshop on Advanced Control and Diagnosis, ACD 2010”, 18-19 November 2010, Ferrara.
He participates as a speaker at the main conferences of the sector such as the American Control Conference (ACC), the Conference on Decision and Control (CDC), the European Control Conference (ECC), and the IFAC world congress.
Scientific Interests
His scientific interests focus on the design of robust control systems, extremum seeking optimisation algorithms, observation and motion planning for autonomous vehicles, control laws applied to automotive, functional safety analysis in the context of control theory, and modelling and simulation of Lagrangian systems.
