Engineering portfolio · UK and Europe

Juan Bernardo
Pastuszak

I want to work on guidance and control for UAVs and autonomous aircraft.

MSc student at Imperial College London and First Class Aerospace Engineering graduate from the University of Bristol, with experience in control design, modelling and hardware validation through spacecraft attitude-control and flight-dynamics projects.

Looking for an early careers engineering role starting in autumn 2027, in the UK or elsewhere in Europe. I am based in London and can relocate.

CV Email LinkedIn

Recognition

First Class HonoursBEng Aerospace Engineering · Bristol

Best SatelliteTeam award · UKSEDS 2025 Highest coursework mark in the cohortFlight Dynamics and Advanced Control; Dynamics and Control of Linear Systems

NASA Space AppsGlobal Connection award · Bristol event

Projects

Vision and control

CubeSat Vision and Attitude Control

Camera-based pointing for a student CubeSat demonstrator. I wrote the vision software and built the reaction wheel.

±1 mmcamera distance accuracy, checked against hand-measured references

Gain scheduled pitch rate control for a nonlinear F-16 model

Modelling and control

F-16 Gain Scheduled Control

From fixed PI gains to an airspeed scheduled controller, checked in nonlinear simulation.

36% lower errorpitch rate tracking with gain scheduling against fixed gains, in simulated gusts and sensor noise

Photo: Emile Holba / Launch 4 Change

Electronics and integration

Atmospheric Rocket Payload

I designed the payload board and wrote its firmware. It flew on HyPower’s rocket in August 2026.

Mach 1.5 · 4,817 mthe team’s fastest flight; the altitude peak was logged by my payload’s barometer

Using fast simulations to guide patches for automated fabric forming

Composites research

Automated Composite Forming

I tested whether shear instabilities in a fast fabric-forming simulation predict real wrinkles, then formed four physical samples to check.

Wrinkle suppressedthe optimised patches removed the top surface fold seen in the unpatched physical sample

Structures and testing

Agricultural Survey UAV

I worked on the wing joint and fairing, then used the tunnel pitch data to fit a model and design a PID controller in simulation.

1.27 s settling, 0% overshootmy PID pitch controller on the identified UAV model, in simulation

Other projects and interests

Flight dynamics

Stinson L-5 Flight Tests

Extending a course task through simulated flight tests and a Python workflow for handling qualities analysis.

Personal software project

UAV Design Tool

A Python tool that runs VSPAERO and AVL and builds the state-space models. It is still in development.

Wing fabrication for an autonomous competition aircraft

Team fabrication

UAS Challenge Wing Fabrication

Helping the team build wooden wings and carbon fibre leading edges for the UAS Challenge.

juanberpastuszak@gmail.com LinkedIn CV