Stefan Winkler

Prof. Winkler stands for what he frequently calls „the greatest of all systems“ on board spacecraft and aircraft, the Guidance, Navigation & Control GNC system. Being a pioneer of small autonomous UAVs in Germany and beyond, he developed the navigation algorithms for what was labeled „The World’s Smallest Integrated Navigation System“ by the US Inside GNSS magazine. Since 2007 he is a member of Airbus’ transnational AOCS/GNC & Flight Dynamics division in the heart of spacecraft development. His expertise covers all phases from pen-and-paper to in-flight validation, his AOCS/GNC solutions fly on many current and future Airbus spacecraft. He supports and advises teams and projects, keeps a strong connection to research institutes, his recommendations make the difference. Since years he gives lectures on “Satellite Control” and “Digital Control and Filtering” at the University of Stuttgart.

20+ years professional experience in Guidance, Navigation and Control (GNC) systems development for aerospace vehicles

100+ scientific publications in Aerospace Guidance, Navigation and Control (incl. more than 10 popular scientific in e.g., GPS World, Inside GNSS).

Latest major contributions to the space missions Starlab, LSTM, MetOp-SG, SARah/NGSAR, CRISTAL, LISA, agile missions

Latest major contributions to industrial R&D: GNSS-based Precise Orbit Determination (POD) and Precise Baseline Determination (PBD), advanced V&V for industrial efficiency

since 2007

since 2025

since 2023

since 2017

2010 - 2018

2012 - 2017

2007 - 2017

Airbus Defence and Space, Friedrichshafen

AOCS/GNC & Flight Dynamics

Senior Expert in “Spacecraft Autonomy, Navigation & Control”

Honorary Professor at the University of Stuttgart

Expert in „Optimal Estimation & Control“

Team leader “Science Studies & GNC” and “Advanced GNC”

Senior Specialist in “Stochastic Filtering and Optimal Estimation”

Analyst und System Engineer for “AOCS/GNC and Flight Dynamics“

2003 - 2006

Mavionics GmbH

Co-founder and shareholder

09/2002 – 12/2006

Research Associate

Institute of Aerospace Systems, Technical University of Braunschweig

Doctorate in aerospace engineering (Dr.-Ing.)

Research, development and experimental validation of integrated navigation / multi-sensor data fusion algorithms for small autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV)

03/2001 – 08/2002

Research Associate

Center of Applied Space Technology and Microgravity (ZARM), University of Bremen

Research and development of spacecraft attitude determination and control algorithms