Thomas Statheros

Biography

Thomas is an Assistant Professor in Aerospace Engineering (Avionics, Autonomy, and Safety) at Coventry University in the Research Centre for Future Transport and Cities (CFTC). He is the founder and research leader of the Critical Autonomy and Safety Laboratory (CAUSLab) within CFTC.

Thomas has over 23 years of work experience in industrial and academic research domains, specifically in Autonomous Systems, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Embedded Systems, Software, Electronics, and Avionics Systems Design. He has designed several electronic hardware and software/embedded software products and related algorithms. He has collaborated with many major Aerospace, Automotive, and Marine Companies in the UK, Europe, and the US. As a Lead Design Engineer, he has been in direct communication with EASA, and he has certified a product to DAL level (Aerospace Safety-Critical Systems) while at the same time leading multidisciplinary teams of engineers. He is an expert on Aerospace Avionics standards (e.g., DO178B, DO254, and ARP4754) and full design product lifecycle at systems, electronic hardware, and software/embedded software levels. Project examples include the flight control network (design engineer - part of the team of a number of collaborators including Northrop Grumman and Hybrid Air Vehicles) for LEMV airship (the world's largest experimental airship at the time -US and UK project-), lead design engineer for the helicopter (US and Europe safety design) weather radar control panel (Direct Communication with EASA), multiple marine electronics devices (embedded hardware and software level).

Thomas, in his academic professional career, has led and participated in several research projects. He is the Coventry Principal Investigator of the EV-LIFT (Electric Vehicle Light-weighting integrated Future-proof Traction), which is an APC12 project/ Innovate UK project. The project is a collaboration with Lotus Cars Ltd and YASA Motors Ltd (Industrial partner Lead). Coventry is responsible for the torque vectoring technology related to safety, control, autonomy, performance, and economy. Coventry value of £389K and overall project cost of £22 Million.

He is the Module Leader of 2 Avionics Modules and has introduced requirements-based verification at the University innovatively (including software design and hardware integration). He has also completed over 35 Undergraduate and MSc projects related to path-planning, control, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles/Systems (UAV/UAS), Automotive, and Safety-Critical projects. In addition, he has developed both R&D industrial and research-inspired teaching related to safety, autonomy, AI, and control.

Thomas has also worked as a Research Associate at the University of Kent on an INTERREG-funded research project on Autonomous Navigation. During this post, he designed novel real-time path planning and computer vision algorithms and designed/developed autonomous navigation systems/algorithms. In addition, he taught and supervised several undergraduate and postgraduate students in Autonomous Navigation, Computer Vision, Software, Embedded Software, Systems, Electronics, and Mathematics.