McCrink, Matthew

Biography

Avanti high-speed research aircraft

Dr. Matthew H. McCrink is a Research Scientist at The Ohio State University. He received his doctorate in 2015 from The Ohio State University in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and his Masters and Bachelor degrees from Boise State University in Mechanical Engineering in 2007 and 2002, respectively. Dr. McCrink’s research interests include unmanned flight vehicle design and testing. This broad field includes a focus on embedded systems and sensor design and vehicle state estimation and control. Through the course of his work, Dr. McCrink has designed, built, and tested one full-scale aircraft and 45 unique unmanned aerial vehicles. He recently set the official world speed and distance record for an autonomous unmanned aircraft in 2018, using a turbojet powered UAS with custom avionics designed, fabricated, and flight-tested at the Ohio State University. In addition to this work, he has designed and built numerous small-scale inertial navigation and air-data systems used for unmanned, full-scale, and rocket vehicle analysis. He is currently serving as a lead technical engineer for the Ohio State ASSURE FAA Center of Excellence focused on integration of UAS into the NAS.

Dr. Matthew McCrink with the Peregrine UAS

Dr. McCrink has previously worked for Sandia National Laboratories focusing on micro-fluidic sensor systems design. He has also interned at the Air Force Research Laboratory focusing on advanced computational fluid dynamics. He has received numerous awards for technical excellence from AIAA and the Society of Flight Test Engineers and is an active member of both organizations.  

Expertise

  • Non-Linear System Identification and Control
    • Novel non-linear real-time system identification and control concepts for fault-tolerant UAS
    • Embedded systems development focusing on inertial guidance system performance and real-time vehicle plant model estimation
    • Development and integration of novel sensing schemes to improve plant model estimation
  • Design, Development, and Flight Testing of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
    • Advanced multi-rotor aerodynamic analysis
      • Low-Reynolds analysis for small-scale propulsion systems
      • PIV and other advanced diagnostics for rotor-airframe interactions
      • Wind tunnel testing of integrated propulsion systems
      • Flight testing of fully-instrumented quadrotor vehicle for force/moment estimations in flight
      • Atmospheric sensing and micro wind-field modeling for operations in congested urban areas
    • Long-endurance electric powered fixed wing vehicle design
      • Long-duration dynamic soaring platform demonstrator 
      • Application vehicle for system identification and control concepts
      • Integrated power measurement capabilities and total energy control system for enhanced endurance
    • High-speed, highly maneuverable aircraft design
      • Turbojet powered UAS capable of extreme g-loads at high airspeeds
      • Ultimate demonstration vehicle for real-time system identification and control
      • Used to set Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) international speed and distance world record for autonomous flight
      • Test bed for command and control link design and demonstration
  • Unmanned Traffic Management (UTM) Systems
    • Designed, developed, and deployed UTM system along 35 mile smart corridor using ground-based radar systems, spectrum sensors, and sensor fusion systems to present a complete integrated air picture below 1,000 ft AGL. 
    • Demonstrated machine learning techniques for unknown vehicle identification and classification for non-cooperative target tracking
    • Lead flight-test pilot and engineer for demonstrating detect and avoid flights
  • General Aviation Pilot
    • Private pilot with instrument rating and ~300 hours in numerous general aviation aircraft