Dr. Ron Melz

As student of electrical engineering I focused on embedded software/hardware design as well as methods of machine learning, envisioning that one day I would create intelligent embedded systems which learn from their environment. During my PhD I learned to structure and to solve more complex problems, to collaborate abroad and in larger teams and to inspire and to manage projects primarily with students.

At EADS I use this skill to focus the workflow of my team of ca. 10 engineers and to design effective verification solutions for airplane software. I like my job at Cassidian for three reasons: First, I enjoy working together with so many diverse colleagues from all over Europe. Second, it allows me to work on the pinnacle of embedded software: the full-authority flight control system (FCS) software of an aerodynamically instable military airplane is hard to beat in safety and realtime criticality and very complex. Third, I work on the design of intelligent verification solutions for the FCS software, integrating specialized commercial static program analysis packages (e.g. AbsInt analyzer, Polyspace, Understand, SPARK…) and from unit / software integration testing (e.g. Greenhills, Vectorcast, Freescale pretarget boards and Lauterbach equipment).

Beyond embedded systems/machine learning I rediscovered my enthusiasm for renewable energy generation. When I was studying electrical engineering I put this dream aside because I did not see a self-sustainable (less subsidized than other energy sources in the long run) business scenario in the foreseeable future. But by today's fossil fuel prices, increasing pressure for action against anthropogenic climate change and price degression for technology (PV, wind mills, …) time might pretty soon be ripe for change. Especially worth observing I find parabolic trough (CSP) combined with high-voltage direct current (HVDC) technology and the Dii (Desertec Industrial Initiative)…