Welcome to aeronick.ca created by Nicholas Bourgeois.

This page documents some of my personal, professional, and academic projects in engineering and software development.

I have recently completed a doctorate (PhD) degree, specializing in biomechanics, where I developed and validated a model that predicts how people will respond while working in ocean environments. I developed my model using a multibody dynamics modelling technique that automatically generates the 6-DOF equations of motion based on the system geometry and wrote the simulation code in MATLAB and C++. I validated the model by comparing its performance to published results from similar postural stability models. I designed the model's control system to behave similarly to an actual human using experimental biometric data that I gathered from human postural stability experiments I performed on board CFAV Quest in the North Atlantic Ocean in 2012.

For my Master's degree (MASc) I focused on computer systems engineering. For my thesis project I designed and developed a flight deck motion monitoring system in collaboration with General Dynamics Canada. The objective of the system was to improve the efficiency and safety of helicopter-ship interactions by providing ship motion information to the Landing Signals Officer on Canada's frigates. Computer hardware was selected to meet military standards for ruggedness and I designed and developed the software in UML and C++.

I have been employed as an object-oriented C++ software developer since 2006 for the National Research Council of Canada. My software is used every day by engineers to analyze aircraft flight recorder data for maintenance purposes and for aircraft incident investigations. In my most recent project for NRC I developed a standalone software package that can load and plot the ARINC 767 data format that is replacing ARINC 429 in the newest civil and military flight systems.

For the last 2 1/2 years I have worked for MDA Corporation (now part of Maxar Technologies) in the Aviation Navigation Systems department. The primary product I have worked on is 'Global Procedure Designer', a software package used to design flight procedures that are safe and that meet all regulatory requirements.

My latest project has been to port the MATLAB simulation I developed for my PhD to a standalone C++ program and to add realtime visualization. Here are download links:
4linksim0_3.zip 14.5mb
4linksim0_3.7z 9.8 mb

Here is a video of v0.1 of the software in action. In v0.1 the only output is the visual display but in v0.3 I have added CSV file output and realtime display graphs.