Dr. Steven Dumble
Aerospace Engineer & Software Developer
Let's Do Some Awesome Stuff.
About Me
Dr. Steven Dumble is a Senior Guidance, Navigation and Control Engineer at Anduril. An experienced PhD GNC engineer with over 15 years of experience, specialising in vision-aided inertial navigation systems as well as fixed-wing autopilot design and implementation.
Steven holds a PhD and BEng(Aero)(Hons) from the University of Sydney, where his doctoral research focused on developing robust vision-based navigation systems that fuse inertial information with visual cues for aircraft navigation in GPS-denied environments.
Beyond research, Steven is passionate about engineering education and has developed theoretical and practical resources for GNC engineers through gnctoolbox.com and a suite of popular online courses.
Experience
Senior GNC Engineer
CurrentGuidance, Navigation and Control engineering for advanced autonomous systems.
Lead GNC Engineer
Guidance, Navigation and Control Team Lead for advanced defence programmes.
Software Engineer
Autonomous teaming behaviour development for next-generation aerial platforms.
Senior Control Engineer
Designed and implemented control systems for autonomous agricultural platforms. Contributed to multiple patented technologies.
Maritime Strike Weapon Model Developer
Development and simulation of maritime strike weapon system models.
PhD Researcher & Academic
Research into vision-based navigation, horizon detection, and terrain-aided attitude determination. Teaching aerospace engineering students.
Projects
Flight Data Acquisition System
A full flight data and video real-time data acquisition system developed in C++ for the University of Sydney Jabiru Flight Test Laboratory Program. The FDAS records and processes inertial, air data, magnetometer, GPS, control, and camera measurements in real-time across a distributed computing system.
- NovAtel ProPak-G2plus SPAN with HG1700 Tactical-Grade IMU at 100 Hz
- 7 cameras: 5× Unibrain Fire-i Firewire (30 Hz) + 2× Prosilica GigE (25 Hz)
- USB driver optimisations to achieve >500 Hz throughput
- Double-buffered multi-threaded disk streaming for real-time data throughput
Horizon Detection for Attitude Determination
Developed a real-time capable horizon detection method capable of extracting the actual horizon profile shape — going beyond the straight-line assumption used in prior methods. The horizon profile is then used for terrain-aided attitude determination and localisation, producing measurements at least an order of magnitude more precise than conventional horizon-line methods.
- Terrain-aided attitude determination accurate to full attitude triplet (bank, pitch, yaw)
- Efficient horizon profile generation from digital terrain maps
- Real-time feasible position and attitude estimation via profile matching
- Vision-based navigation independent of GPS
Airborne Vision-Aided Navigation
A completely passive, independent vision-based navigation system for aerial environments. The system combines SLAM for short-term precision, terrain-aided navigation using human-recognisable features (road intersections, rivers), and visual horizon-based attitude determination — mimicking VFR pilot navigation without reliance on GPS.
- Road intersection detection algorithm validated in flight tests
- Navigation accuracy comparable to or better than GPS
- Feature-based TAN using GIS-mapped landmarks
- Probabilistic sensor fusion of visual and inertial measurements
Publications & Patents
View on Google ScholarJournal Papers & Theses
Explicit efficient constrained model predictive control
2016Presents an explicit, deterministic constrained MPC algorithm based on a single prediction point, reducing computational overhead while maintaining closed-loop stability guarantees.
Airborne Vision-Aided Navigation Using Road Intersection Features
2014Vision-aided inertial navigation system using ground road intersections matched to a GIS database as position measurements, removing dependence on GPS. Validated in flight tests.
Efficient Terrain-Aided Visual Horizon Based Attitude Estimation and Localization
2014Efficient terrain-aided navigation method generating position measurements from the visual appearance of the horizon profile, enabling real-time attitude and position estimation.
Efficient constrained model predictive control
2014Improves constraint handling in algebraic MPC by introducing additional constraint-check points at the peak response location, retaining computational efficiency.
Airborne Vision-Based Attitude Estimation and Localisation
2012Doctoral thesis developing and implementing a robust vision-based system fusing inertial information with visual data in a probabilistic framework for aircraft navigation.
Horizon Profile Detection for Attitude Determination
2012Horizon detection method that extracts the actual horizon profile shape (beyond the straight-line assumption) for visual attitude determination.
Flight Control System Design: Learning Enhancement through Motion Based Flight Simulation
2010Experiential lab exercises using a motion-based flight simulator to improve student understanding of flight control system design. Demonstrated substantial learning improvements.
Enhancement of Learning in Aircraft Handling Qualities through Variable Stability Flight Simulation
2009Full-motion flight simulator demonstrating a range of aircraft flight responses to teach aerospace students the connection between aerodynamic parameters and handling qualities.
Vision Systems for Flight Guidance
2007Research and development of horizon and runway detection algorithms for extracting guidance information used in a terminal predictive control guidance system for automated visual landing.
Patents
Automatic pitch mounting compensation in an automatic steering system
Vehicle Implement Control
Predicting terrain traversability for a vehicle
Three-Dimensional Terrain Mapping
Low Cost Implement Positioning
Vehicle Control Optimization
Using Optical Sensors to Resolve Vehicle Heading Issues
Courses
gnctoolbox.comTheoretical and practical resources for GNC engineers. Discount codes available at gnctoolbox.com/courses.
Advanced Kalman Filtering and Sensor Fusion
A comprehensive course covering advanced Kalman filter variants (EKF, UKF, Particle Filters) and multi-sensor fusion techniques, grounded in aerospace applications.
Data Fusion with Linear Kalman Filter
A practical introduction to the linear Kalman filter for data fusion, walking through the maths and implementation from first principles.
Complete Guide to Rotations and Transformations
Everything you need to know about 3D rotations and coordinate transformations for aerospace and robotics applications: rotation matrices, quaternions, Euler angles.