Guidance, Navigation & Control Engineer
Courses for this role
Controls & estimation foundations
Linear systems, state-space, Kalman filtering. The math you reach for every day on the job.
State estimation is half the job. You should implement these from scratch before touching a library.
The classical-controls reference you’ll come back to for decades.
Trajectory optimization & MPC
Where controls stops being a textbook and starts being production code.
Russ Tedrake’s MIT course — the standard text for trajectory opt + LQR.
Two toolchains that cover 90% of research-grade trajopt work.
The convex-optimization layer under most production MPC and trajectory optimization. Textbook math; CVXPY + OSQP is how it actually ships.
Real-time flight deployment
Controls only matters if it ships to the autopilot. This stage is about getting your code onto a vehicle.
Flight controllers run at 1kHz. Missed deadlines crash vehicles.
Real-world flight controllers compensate for wind, gusts, and aerodynamic disturbances continuously. Closed-loop disturbance observers and adaptive controllers separate textbook GN&C from flight-worthy GN&C.
You cannot tune what you cannot fly. Part 107 lets you do your own flight tests.