Guidance Navigation Controls (gnc) Engineer or a Principal Guidance Navigation Controls (gnc) Engineer

Northrop Grumman Northrop Grumman · Aerospace · El Segundo, CA +1 · Systems/Architecture/Test

Northrop Grumman is seeking a Guidance Navigation Controls (GNC) Engineer or Principal GNC Engineer to support research and development of flight control algorithms for manned and unmanned air vehicles. The role involves designing, developing, implementing, and testing algorithms, software, and simulation tools for GNC of autonomous unmanned aircraft, developing control laws, dynamic simulation models, and supporting flight test activities. Requires a STEM degree and experience with flight dynamics, control systems, MATLAB, and Simulink.

What you'd actually do

  1. Support research and development of flight control algorithms for manned and unmanned air vehicles.
  2. Design, develop, implement, verify, and test algorithms, software, and simulation tools to perform guidance, navigation and control (GNC) of autonomous unmanned aircraft.
  3. Develop control laws to meet air vehicle performance, flying qualities, and stability margin requirements both on ground and in flight.
  4. Design outer and inner loop control laws and associated logic and autonomy functions.
  5. Develop air vehicle system linear and non-linear dynamic simulation models and integrate models into software and hardware-in-the-loop simulation environments.

Skills

Required

  • Bachelor's degree in a relevant Science, Technology, Engineering or Mathematics (STEM) discipline with 2 years of related experience; OR a Master’s degree in a related STEM discipline with 0 years of experience.
  • Working knowledge of or experience with fixed-wing aircraft flight dynamics.
  • Working knowledge of or experience with linear control principles and tools to design feedback control systems.
  • Working knowledge of or experience with analyzing non-linear simulations of aircraft closed-loop dynamics.
  • Working knowledge of or experience with autopilot functions.
  • Working knowledge of or experience with outer loop control law performance requirements.
  • Experience using MATLAB to create, process, analyze, and visually represent data.
  • Experience using Simulink to model dynamic systems.
  • Familiarity with autocoding Simulink models
  • Working knowledge of logic, modes, and states for autonomous aircraft.
  • Familiarity with C/C++ programming.
  • Familiarity with Python programming.
  • Must have the ability to obtain and maintain a US Government Secret clearance and Special Access Program (SAP) within a reasonable amount of time as determined by business needs

Nice to have

  • Current active in-scope US Government Secret security clearance or higher, with the ability to obtain Special Program Access (SAP).
  • Experience designing control laws for fixed wing aircraft
  • Familiarity with MIL-STD-1797 flying qualities requirements
  • Familiarity with with autonomy algorithms (Autonomous Taxi/ Take Off And Landing, etc.) for driving control laws.
  • Familiarity with Simulink Stateflow Modeling
  • Experience with Lua Script programming.
  • Working knowledge of SAE-94910 performance requirements.

What the JD emphasized

  • Secret clearance
  • Special Access Program (SAP)