Marcel Quintana
Head of Robotics and Automation
Marcel is at CTAE since January 2007 as Head of Robotics and Advanced Automation group, and the former responsible for Safety-Critical Software and Control group until October 2009, when he handed over the responsibilities.
He holds an academic education in computer science from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), in which he undertook the master's degree project at the Mathematics and Systems Engineering School in the University of Växjö, Sweden. He also holds a master of research (i.e. DEA) in robotics and control undertaken at the Department of Systems Engineering, Automation and Industrial Informatics (ESAII) in the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC).
His professional career started in 2001 at GTD -a Catalan company located in Barcelona-, where he had the opportunity to join the Science and Advanced Control Department for almost three years. During that period, he was involved in ARC and DEMAND projects focused on humanitarian demining, and funded by the 5th Framework Programme (5FP) of the European Commission. He gained experienced on information fusion, software programming and software architecture, as well as back-end and geographic information systems (GIS). Afterwards, he was selected to participate in the ESA’s Young Graduate Trainee (YGT) programme, and later on employed by a Swiss start-up company, Solenix GmbH; where he joined the Advanced Mission Concepts and Technologies Office in the Operations Department at ESA/ESOC, Germany. He collaborated in the investigation of new technologies and concept’s for ESOC’s core business in spacecraft (S/C) and ground segment control, having the opportunity to closely work with S/C Operations Engineers (SOEs), S/C Operations Managers (SOMs) and S/C Controllers (SPACONs). He undertook research, technology and development in virtual reality (VR) and web3D technologies, knowledge engineering, soft computing as well as information and back-end systems.