Prof. Pierluigi Capone

Work at ZHAW

Position

• Head Flight Mechanics and Flight Control Systems
• Professional development course - Specific Operations Risk Assessment (SORA) for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV)
• SoE Coordinator for drones and unmanned aerial vehicles

Focus

• Design, specification and development from limited control authority to full fly-by-wire flight control systems for fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft
• Parameter Estimation for research, development and training purposes
• Development of Real-time simulatiors (simulation model, control loading, motion base and visual system)
• Flight Test for Flight Control System and Parameter Estimation, Planning, Instrumentation, Execution, data Analysis
• Development of new inceptor designs suitable for tiltrotor and compound helicopter designs.

Teaching

• Aircraft Systems - Control Systems
• Flight Mechanics and Simulation
• System Reliability, Availability, Maintainability, Safety
• Safety Critical Systems (MSE)

Experience

• Head of Control Laws Design - Fly by Wire Integrated Team
  AgustaWestland
  2008 - 2013
• Chief Project Engineer for Fly by Wire
  Sistemi Dinamici, Italy, on behalf of AgustaWestland
  2006 - 2008
• Middle Management, Flight Control System Group – Rotorcraft Flight Control System Design, Integration and Flight Testing
  AgustaWestland, Italy
  2004 - 2006
• Engineer Specialist, Active Control Technology Group - Design, verification, clearance, pilot in the loop simulation and flight test of digital control laws.
  Bombardier Aerospace, Canada
  2001 - 2004
• Senior Engineer, Flight Controls and Handling Qualities Groups – BA609 Tilt-Rotor Flight Control System Development
  Bell Helicopter, USA (on Behalf of Agusta SpA)
  2000 - 2001
• Guidance, Navigation & Control Engineer, Flight Control System Group - Responsible for M346 Advanced Trainer Control Laws
  Aermacchi SpA
  1995 - 2000
• Engineer Aerodynamics Office - Perfromenace, Flight Test and Certification
  Pilatus Aircraft Ltd
  1995 - 1995

Education and Continuing education

Education

• CAS University Didactic
  PHZH
  2022 - 2023
• EASA Design Organisation Approval, Certification of aircraft and related products, parts and appliances, and of design and production organisations
  JAA Training Organization
  2021 - 2021
• Development Courses - Middle Management
  AgustaWestland
  2004 - 2012
• Leadership Development
  Bombardier Aerospace
  2004 - 2004
• Aircraft Reliability and FAR/JAR Design Requirements
  Bombardier Aerospace
  2003 - 2003
• MSc In Aerospace Engineering / Aeroservoelasticity
  Politecnico di Milano
  1988 - 1994

Continuing Education

Private Pilot Licence
Avilu flight School
1992

Network

Membership of networks

• ERF (European Rotorcraft Forum) International Committee
• Working Group: WG-112 / Vertical Take Off and Landing (VTOL)
• Alumni Politecnico di Milano
• Vertical Flight Society
• Swiss Association of Aeronautical Sciences

ORCID digital identifier

ORCID ID: 0009-0006-5395-5670

Social media

Linkedin

Projects

• White-box Helicopter System Identification / Project leader / ongoing
• Feasibility study on novel tilt-wing control allocation strategy / Co-project leader / completed
• Flight mechanics of a tilt-wing aircraft under harsh conditions / Deputy project leader / completed
• Swiss Drone Base Camp Lodrino / Team member / completed
• Simulation tool to predict the aerodynamics of tilt-wing aircraft / Deputy project leader / completed
• Digital Transformation – Case Studies for Aviation Safety Standards – Modelling and Simulation / Project leader / completed
• High Operational Reliability for Unmanned Systems / Project leader / completed
• Concept and Feasibility Study of a Power Reserve Calculator for General Aviation / Team member / completed
• Novel Generic Collision Avoidance Algorithm / Project leader / completed

Publications

Articles in scientific journal, peer-reviewed

• Liu, X. et al. (2022) 'Atmospheric disturbance modelling for a piloted flight simulation study of airplane safety envelope over complex terrain', Aerospace, 9(2), p. 103. doi: 10.3390/aerospace9020103.
• Abà, A. et al. (2020) 'Mathematical modelling of gimballed tilt-rotors for real-time flight simulation', Aerospace, 7(9), p. 124. doi: 10.3390/aerospace7090124.
• Monstein, R., Capone, P. and Dettling, M. (2019) 'Determination of model structure from flight test with generalized additive models', Journal of Aircraft. doi: 10.2514/1.C035171.

Books, peer-reviewed

Moorhouse, D. J. et al. (2000) Flight control design : best practices. Neuilly-sur-Seine: Research and Technology Organization, North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Available at: http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a387777.pdf.

Written conference contributions, peer-reviewed

• Pedrioli, A. et al. (2026) 'Flight simulation model of a multi-fidelity digital twin of an eVTOL drone', in CEAS Aeronautical Journal. Springer. doi: 10.1007/s13272-026-00961-3.
• Pedrioli, A. et al. (2024) 'MODEL-SI : modeling and simulation - multi-fidelity surrogate model of an eVTOL for certification', in American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Science and Technology Forum and Exposition (AIAA SciTech Forum), Orlando, USA, 8-12 January 2024. American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. doi: 10.2514/6.2024-1624.
• Primatesta, S. et al. (2023) 'Implementation of a comprehensive real-time flight simulator for XV-15 tilt-rotor aircraft', in AIAA SciTech 2023 Forum. Reston: American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. doi: 10.2514/6.2023-0336.
• Pavel, M., Abà, A. and Capone, P. (2023) 'Metrics and guidelines for rotorcraft modeling accuracy and their relation to model uncertainty : a state-of-the practice survey', in 49th European Rotorcraft Forum 2023 - Proceedings. Bonn: Deutsche Gesellschaft für Luft- und Raumfahrt - Lilienthal-Oberth e.V.
• Abà, A. et al. (2023) 'Convertiplane control during transition : the Collective and Throttle Lever (CATL)', in 49th European Rotorcraft Forum 2023 - Proceedings. Bonn: Deutsche Gesellschaft für Luft- und Raumfahrt - Lilienthal-Oberth e.V.
• Garbo, P., Quaranta, G. and Capone, P. (2023) 'Non-invasive optical sensors to measure pilots' forces on aircraft control inceptors', in AIAA AVIATION 2023 Forum. American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. doi: 10.2514/6.2023-3321.
• Figuet, B. et al. (2022) 'HORUS : High Operational Reliability for Unmanned Systems', in 48th European Rotorcraft Forum (ERF), Winterthur, Switzerland, 6-9 September 2022. European Rotorcraft Forum. doi: 10.21256/zhaw-27218.
• Capone, P., Rinaldi, M. and Guglieri, G. (2022) 'Comprehensive analysis and configuration of a control loading solution for a rotary wing flight simulator', in Forum 78 Proceedings. Fairfax: Vertical Flight Society. doi: 10.4050/f-0078-2022-1166.
• Capone, P. et al. (2022) 'Design and integration of a tilt-rotor flight simulation platform', in Forum 78 Proceedings. Fairfax: Vertical Flight Society. doi: 10.4050/F-0078-2022-1167.
• Barra, F., Capone, P. and Guglieri, G. (2020) 'A methodology for preliminary performance estimation of a hybrid-electric tilt-wing aircraft for emergency medical services', in 2020 International Conference on Unmanned Aircraft Systems (ICUAS). IEEE, pp. 1636–1643. doi: 10.1109/ICUAS48674.2020.9214025.
• Doran, H. D. et al. (2020) 'Conceptual design of human-drone communication in collaborative environments', in 2020 50th Annual IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks Workshops (DSN-W). IEEE, pp. 118–121. doi: 10.1109/DSN-W50199.2020.00030.
• Barra, F. et al. (2019) 'Implementation of a comprehensive mathematical model for tilt-rotor real-time flight simulation', in 45th European Rotorcraft Forum, Warsaw, Poland, 17-20 September 2019. ZHAW Zürcher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften. doi: 10.21256/zhaw-19753.
• Capone, P. (2002) 'Linearization of aircraft models : a flight control system and flying qualities perspective', in Challenges in dynamics, system identification, control and handling qualities for land, air sea and space vehicles. Neuilly-sur-Seine: Research and Technology Organization, North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
• Capone, P. and Mantegazza, P. (1995) 'Adaptive control of a multi-input multi-output flutter suppression system', in Nineteenth European Rotorcraft Forum : Cernobbio (Como), September 14-16, 1993. Amsterdam: National Aerospace Laboratory.

Other publications

Deverlija, J. J. et al. (2024) 'A novel wake interference model for helicopter real-time simulation', in 50th European Rotorcraft Forum, Marseille, France, 10-12 September 2024. ZHAW Zürcher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften. doi: 10.21256/zhaw-32606.

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