I have spent more than two decades in the United States, as a student, researcher, and lecturer in the Graduate Aeronautical Laboratories at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech, Pasadena, USA) as well as a research engineer at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Pasadena, USA). Since mid-2000, I have been in Switzerland teaching and conducting research in fluid mechanics and aerodynamics at HEPIA (HES-SO University of Applied Sciences). I am also lecturing (Compressible Fluid Mechanics) at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL).

Thierry received his Master’s degree from the University of Southampton (UK) in Naval Architecture. For his MS thesis, he desgined and built a functional jellyfish-like robot. He completed his Bachelor thesis at Caltech, by designing, building, and flying a drone in a wind tunnel under MOCAP control.

Thierry received his Master’s degree from HES-SO. He is co-founder of WindShape, and his design skills have led him from underwater drones to fully functional digital wind facilities and space capsules.

Thierry received his Master’s degree from the University of Southampton (UK). He is co-founder of WindShape. He applies his rigorous measurement skills to any experimental platform.

Cyprien is working on his MS degreee at EPFL. He is a fixed-wing drone pilot and design prodigy.

Gesh received his BS at HES-SO Genève, working at CHACHACHA. He developed a robotic procedure for measuring flows in front of a windshaper..

Theo received his BS and MS from HES-SO. His expertise is in mechanical design, for space and aeronautical platforms.

Luca received his PhD from Brown University. He has expertise in drone development. He has published in Interface Focus and Science (Robotics) as a fist author, and received the “La Recherche” Prize for Best Technological Development in 2017.

Enrico has designed, built, and tested an Avian-Inspired MAV with Synergistic Morphing Wing and Tail for Multi-Role Flight.

Jean-Baptiste characterized the aerodynamic properties of the senseFly ebeeX.

Marie worked on simulating the aerodynamics of senseFly drones using Lattice-Boltzmann methods.

Jean-Philippe developed a methodology to measure and computer boundary layer transition on a human-powered vehicle.

Mehdhi implemented a Lattice-Boltzmann solver to bicycle wheel aerodynamics.

Thibault studied ground effect on drones.

Nathan investigated the effect of sweeping jets on blades of wind turbines for flow control in gusty environments.

As a postdoctoral fellow, Mir ran aerodynamic tests in a WindShape wind facility on a novel feathered drones built by Enrico Ajanic.

Pierre designed and built a snow making system based on the design from the Institute for Snow and Avalanches in Davos for testing drones.

Adrien automatized the control of drones in a motion captured camera environment.

Cédric developed a test bench for the McLaren wind tunnel for his Master’s project.

Raimondo did his Master’s thesis at Caltech designing and building a propeller instrumented with sweeping jets.

Matteo built and tested a new feathered drone, which won the award for best technological achievement in 2018 by the magazine La Recherche.

Jan did his Bachelor’s thesis at Caltech designing the control system for a propeller instrumented with sweeping jets.

Thierry designed a built a quadcopter drone in order to perform flow measurements in a wind tunnel.

Alexandre designed a second version for a proppeler test-bench instrumented with air injection mechanisms..

Thibault developed a setup to investigated bicycle wheel aerodynamics in a water channel.

Alexandre did research on the possibility of having a permanent flying drone.

Chama worked on the evaluation of viscous friction on an oscillatory disk from PIV data.

Nicolas designed and integrated sweeping jets on a NACA 0012 airfoil and performed the tests in the Caltech wind tunnel.

Flavio performed 3D PIV for his Bachelor project at Caltech.

Albéric worked on the temperature effects on sweeping jets at Caltech for a Boeing flow control project.

Lionel first worked on Lattice-Boltzmann methods before turning his attention towards supersonic flows for the swiss space shuttle system.

Quentin investigated the measurement of force using 3D PIV data.

Guillaume designed and manufactured the first prototype of a drone wind facility. He then founded WindShape.

Mark designed a rocket nozzle cooling jacket for the Swiss Propulsion Laboratory (SPL) during his semester project, and then moved to Caltech for his Bachelor thesis to work on the implementation of sweeping jets on a propeller.

Justin studied the effet of sweeping jets on a Boeing 757 vertical stabilizer.

For his Bachelor project, Luca Bardazzi designed and built from scratch a working underwater drone for the Norwegian company Water Linked.

Gutavo developed a new instrument for calibrating pressure sensors at high frequencies.

Ricardo setup a 3D PIV system.

Gautier worked on a the unsteady flow around a plate using a Kuka robot, PIV, and a high speed camera in a towing tank that he designed.

Damien studied the effect of sweeping jets on a propeller based on NACA 0012 airfoils in the Caltech large wind tunnel facility.

Yann developed a valve for sweeping jets to be mounted on a Boeing 757 tail.

Antonio developed a methodology for visualizing aerodynamic flows with helium-filled soap bubbles.

Maxime has done his Bachelor project on trying to improve the aerodynamics of the senseFly drone.

Mylèna worked on setting up a 3D PIV system.

Mohamed designed and built the driving system for the towing tank carriage.

Benjamin has designed and built a mechanical stand to study rotating propellers with flow injection and did his work at Caltech.

Loic designed the power system for a rotating propeller.

Aidan worked on the optimization of Mavic bicycle wheel CXR80 with a water model in a towing tank.

Bassem designed a 3 DOF spherical joint for underwater propulsion.

Fabien performed experiments on a bio-inspired 3 degree of freedom propeller .

David designed a mechanical device to probe oxygen content based on paramagnetism.

Sébastien studied the feasibility of a hydraulic cavitation tunnel.

Jérôme designed and developed a 6 DOF system for testing flapping wings fro hydrodynamic propulsion.

Cuong programmed a 6 DOF robot  and ran PIV on a flapping penguin-like actuator for his EPFL Master’s thesis.

Colas studied the aerodynamics of dirigibles.

Pierre was one of the most brilliant students at hepia. He designed the full data acquisition interface for the wind tunnel, and then moved to DLR Göttingen in the group of Markus Raffel for his Master’s thesis, where he performed the highest resolution PIV on a helicopter blade.

Grégory developed a honeycomb for a vertical wind tunnel in order to straighten the flow for the aerodynamic characterization of volcanic rocks (University of Geneva, Professor Costanza Bonadona).