High-quality education with an explicit and tangible focus on the research state-of-the-art.

Our overall goal as the Control and Simulation section is to offer our students the best possibilities to be motivated, curious, critical, and broadly educated. We strive to do so by coupling clear explanations to our enthusiasm for technology and humans. Through interactive classes, that stimulate student curiosity and a (self-) critical attitude, we aim to challenge students to put their knowledge into a broader context.  For a good impression of what it is like to study at the Control and Simulation section, led by Prof. dr. ir. Max Mulder, watch this video.

MSc courses on human-machine systems and manual control

In the first year of the Masters program at the Control and Simulation section, we offer students a broad and solid basis for control engineering, mathematical systems theory, stochastic systems, human-machine systems, and flight simulation. In the second year, a specialization can be chosen for the Master thesis. To successfully pursue the MSc degree in the field of human-machine systems and manual control (along with some practical experience in programming), the following courses would be strongly recommended/required:

• AE4302: Avionics and Operations
• AE4316: Aerospace Human-Machine Systems
• AE4319: Manual & Control Cybernetics
• AE4320: System Identification of Aerospace Vehicles
• AE4322: Piloted Flight Simulation
• AE4323: Real-time Distributed Flight and Space Simulation

MSc graduation projects

For the final thesis phase, students can choose between assignments focused on the development of new human control models and identification techniques, or those more focused on applications. For all types of assignments, most students conduct a controlled human-in-the-loop experiment in one of our world-class facilities to empirically validate their results. Depending on the topic, MSc graduation experiments range from strongly scientific “laboratory” control tasks (e.g., compensatory tracking) to fully operationally relevant flying tasks (e.g., landing flare). Our students generally work closely together with us and our PhD students to obtain the best possible result and achieve high scientific impact. In fact, the work of most students result in conference articles and sometimes even peer-reviewed journal articles! For an up-to-date overview of available thesis assignments, please go here.

Special Sessions & Workshops

We regularly organize special sessions, workshops, and demonstrations at international conferences and industry to showcase our research. If you are interested in an educative workshop or a live demonstration of our engineering developments, please contact us.

Outreach / education for children

• Fun and educative flight simulator at the Delft Science Centre