Vice President for Research

Short profile

Since April 2005, Professor Hecker has been the Head of the Institute of Flight Guidance. In addition to pertinent teaching work in the fields of flight mechanics, flight control and flight guidance, his focus is on research and innovation in cockpit technologies and air traffic management, as well as interdisciplinary topics such as air traffic safety, human-machine systems and the basics of air traffic navigation, communication and monitoring.

After completing his degree in electrical engineering at TU Braunschweig in 1989, he joined the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) as a research associate. In 2000, he established and directed the newly-founded Pilot Assistance Department at DLR’s Institute of Flight Guidance. While continuing in this position, Hecker completed his doctorate on image-guided navigation at TU Braunschweig.

The focus of work for the coming years include

• Strengthening research, including supporting applications for clusters of excellence and initiating other forms of excellence such as collaborative research centres and graduate schools,
• Quality assurance in research processes, such as the submission of proposals and the development of centralised EU processing,
• Further development of processes and frameworks to support research, such as the establishment of the Wolfsburg Campus, the creation of standards and exchange formats on ethical issues and the evaluation of research.