Profile
Professor John Pearson has worked within the Aerospace and defence industry for over 25years. He has worked for Westland Helicopters, BAE Systems, and Aero-Engine Controls and is currently the Technology Lead for Innovation within the Strategic Research Centre at Rolls-Royce plc.
While at Westland Helicopters he was linked to the Advanced Engineering Department and completed his PhD in the Active Control of Helicopter Structural Response at Loughborough University with Professor Roger Goodall. While at Loughborough he worked on a series of research projects in advanced control techniques, including an international multi-partner project investigating active suspensions, which resulted in the World’s first experimental implementation of an active stability system running at over 300km/h on a roller test rig in Munich.
He also worked on a series of projects with the Military Aircraft Division of British Aerospace Ltd, including:- integrated system architectures using Kalman filters, high integrity aircraft state estimation and model based structural coupling.
At BAE Systems, John was part of the Advanced Technology Centre (ATC) and was based at the Systems Engineering Innovation Centre (SEIC) at Loughborough University. This was a partnership between academia, industry and government to work together on the latest innovations in products, processes and services in the field of systems engineering. At the SEIC John was the technical lead for Integrated Vehicle Health Management IVHM, developed and led the Applied Systems Engineering Group, and was responsible for setting up the Prognostics and Health Management Laboratory.
While at BAE Systems he has worked on a number of advanced research projects linked to various BAE platforms, including the Typhoon and Tornado fast jets, the T-45 Destroyer, and the Herti and Mantis UAV projects.
John was the systems lead for a pan-BAE team concerned with a campaign for Integrated Vehicle Health Management IVHM, maturing, envisioning and internally marketing IVHM capability for BAE platforms and businesses. As well as this John was a member of the cross business unit working groups for IVHM and for Thermal Management.
He has collaborated with Loughborough University on a series of EPSRC funded projects including the optimization of sensing elements for control and fault tolerance of complex systems, an investigation into bio mimetic High Redundancy Actuation for high integrity applications, diagnostic and prognostic techniques, thermal management for avionics, autonomous systems and systems engineering.
Other successful research collaborations have included projects with Professor John Andrews at Nottingham University, and Prof Dawei Gu at Leicester University. An example of this is the involvement with the ASTRAEA programme; this is jointly funded by UK industry and Government to enable the routine use of UAVs in all classes of airspace without the need for restrictive or specialised conditions of operation.
John has served on the National Technical Committee for health management, and he has been on the board of the Boeing IVHM Centre of Excellence at Cranfield University. He is a reviewer for a number of international journals and has been on the organising board for international conferences in the systems and controls area.
John is a Visiting Professor at Loughborough University and an Honorary Associate Professor at Nottingham University. In his spare time, he is the Loughborough University Hammer Throwing coach and has coached a number of international throwers