Kamil Hałas
Engine Control Systems Engineer · Propulsion Engineering
Warsaw, Poland
Engine Control Systems Engineer specializing in FADEC fuel control law design and engine-aircraft interface definition. Works at the boundary between propulsion systems and avionics — modeling engine control laws in Simulink, defining data bus interface requirements (ARINC 429, MIL-STD-1553), and supporting integration testing with aircraft flight control systems.
Expertise
- FADEC fuel control law design
- engine limit protection logic
- MIL-STD-1553 and ARINC 429 interfaces
- control systems modeling in Simulink
- engine-aircraft control system integration
Technologies
Work History
2025-01
Engine HIL (Hardware-in-the-Loop) integration testing with avionics bench — verified FADEC-to-avionics ARINC 429 data communication and engine response to thrust lever angle commands from FCS.
Challenge: Thrust response latency measured on the HIL bench was 80ms — 20ms higher than specification. Root cause: FADEC software was polling the ARINC 429 input at 20 Hz instead of 50 Hz due to a task scheduling misconfiguration. Fixed in firmware and re-verified.
Learned: HIL testing catches integration timing issues that are invisible in unit testing. Engine response latency is a system-level property that only emerges when FADEC firmware, avionics bus, and FCS are tested together.
2024-05
ARINC 429 interface definition for engine-to-aircraft data bus — defined parameter list, word assignments, update rates, and failure modes for 87 engine parameters transmitted to the avionics system.
Challenge: Update rate requirements for some engine parameters (N1, EGT) conflicted with the bus loading constraints — 20 Hz transmission rate for 87 parameters exceeded the single-label bus capacity. Tiered update rates (safety-critical at 20 Hz, advisory at 5 Hz) resolved the constraint.
Learned: ARINC 429 bus loading analysis should be done at the interface definition phase, before update rates are baselined. Changing update rates after baseline causes cascading requirements changes in both engine and avionics systems.
2023-10
Engine limit protection logic implementation — N1 overspeed, EGT overlimit, and surge detection logic in Simulink. Defined response priorities and override logic for simultaneous limit exceedances.
Challenge: Simultaneous EGT limit and N1 overspeed is an extremely rare event but the response logic must be correct. Testing all multi-limit combination scenarios in simulation required a systematic combinatorial test matrix — 27 combinations of limit states with 4 operating conditions each.
Learned: Engine protection logic must be verified with explicit combinatorial testing of all simultaneous limit conditions. Ad-hoc testing misses edge cases that can only appear during specific multi-fault scenarios.
2023-04
FADEC fuel scheduling law design in Simulink — acceleration and deceleration fuel limits as a function of P3, T3, N2 speed. Tuned fuel control schedule to prevent rich blowout during rapid throttle transients.
Challenge: The fuel control schedule is a 3D lookup table (P3 x T3 x N2 axes) with 1800 table entries. Manually tuning this table to achieve stable acceleration across the full operating envelope was impractical. Implemented a systematic sweep using GSP transient model to generate optimal WFE limits automatically.
Learned: FADEC fuel schedule tables that are tuned manually on engine test are always sub-optimal. Model-based schedule generation using the cycle model produces a better initial schedule that requires less test time for refinement.