The Crew Behind The Uncrewed: Francisco Milán

Could you briefly describe the main tasks you handle on a daily basis as an engineer in the flight control department?

In the flight control department at UAV Navigation, my main tasks involve the design, implementation, and maintenance of guidance and control solutions that enhance the capabilities of the unmanned systems we work on. I also conduct flight campaigns with various clients to tailor our solution to their platforms and help them take the final step toward operating them in real-world environments. Finally, I perform cross-functional roles in the validation of our hardware.

You started your career at UAV Navigation-Grupo Oesía through an internship. What caught your attention the most when you first arrived, and what made you want to continue building your career at the company once the internship was over?

There are two main reasons that convinced me this was the right place for me. First, the personal and professional qualities of the team that makes up the company are remarkable and make you want to come back to continue learning and contributing to this extraordinary group. Additionally, the wide variety of cutting-edge projects the company works on every day is a breeding ground for any engineer who is curious and eager to contribute to the future.

During your time as a student, you showed an interest in competitive UAS and were even one of the co-founders of the SAETA UC3M association. How do you think that experience has helped you better understand the industry’s needs and add value to the company?

The UAS world, while sharing certain similarities with traditional aeronautics, has certain peculiarities that aren’t taught in college. Perhaps the most distinctive is the time scale. An unmanned vehicle can go from conception to its first flight in just a few months, which demands a great capacity for adaptation, a certain “spark” that’s harder to find in other industry settings. Having co-founded and been part of an association like SAETA UC3M, where you have to do a lot with little and where that adaptability is the rule, has helped me not only to accept it but to enjoy it as a fundamental ingredient for delivering valuable solutions in a demanding and rapidly changing market. And most importantly, my time with this association has left me with an unconditional love for the unmanned world; as well as a few colleagues with whom I have shared so many failures and successes.

You have been involved in the development of our vision-guided product. What is the main benefit you would highlight for those less familiar with this concept, and how does the solution from UAV Navigation-Grupo Oesía help address the challenges posed by today’s world?

Indeed, the current context presents increasingly demanding challenges, especially in the defense sector, where navigation systems must simultaneously deliver high precision and robustness. The proliferation of electronic warfare techniques, such as jamming or spoofing, is making GNSS-only navigation unreliable or even unfeasible in certain scenarios. In this context, the vision-based guidance system the company is committed to offers a fundamental benefit: it reduces dependence on vulnerable external infrastructure, such as satellite constellations, thereby strengthening the system’s resilience. This type of solution allows for the incorporation of an additional layer of autonomous navigation based solely on onboard sensors, such as cameras, which are much more difficult to interfere with or degrade. This marks a significant paradigm shift: the vehicle no longer relies exclusively on absolute coordinates and can operate relative to its surroundings or a specific target. It’s as if, instead of telling the taxi driver where you want to go, you shout, “Follow the car in front!” You don’t know where you’ll end up, but you do know you’ll arrive at the same place as the other car.