Control and Automation Engineer, PAT Systems

# Control and Automation Engineer, PAT Systems## About

En entreprise, comme en musique, tout est une question de tempo. Depuis 2018, nous réunissons des **consultant·e·s passionné·e·s, curieux·ses et ambitieux·ses,** uni·e·s par une même conviction : mettre leur expertise au service des défis numériques, sectoriels et industriels de nos clients.

Notre mission ? **Accélérer les transformations** en combinant excellence opérationnelle, curiosité et audace. Nous accompagnons des acteurs majeurs du **luxe, du retail, de l’énergie, du transport, du tourisme, de la banque ou encore de l’assurance** — partout où la technologie rencontre l’humain.

Nous aimons la tech quand elle connecte et libère les potentiels. Nos consultant·e·s ne se contentent pas de conseiller : ils construisent, testent, mettent en production, mesurent, ajustent et recommencent. **Avec nos clients, nous faisons partie du jeu, du début à la fin**.

Notre organisation repose sur une **culture de la confiance, de l’apprentissage et de la collaboration**. Nous avons conçu un cadre unique qui accompagne chaque e

Xalté·e à chaque étape de sa carrière, avec des rôles clairs, des communautés actives et des rituels qui renforcent le collectif. Nos **e

Xaltemps** trimestriels, notre **e

Xalt Academy** et nos projets internes sont autant d’occasions d’apprendre, de partager et de grandir ensemble.

Aujourd’hui présents en **France, au Canada, aux États-Unis, au Royaume-Uni, en Belgique, en Espagne, au Portugal et à Monaco**, nous sommes portés par un engagement fort et une énergie contagieuse.

Parce qu’apprendre est notre discipline, agir notre obsession et réussir ensemble notre plus belle victoire.**Pulse. Make. Learn.** Trois mots qui rythment notre quotidien. Et peut-être bientôt le tien?## Job Description

Our client is an innovative and fast-growing technology company developing advanced optical communication and photonics-based systems for highly demanding applications.

As part of the growth of its engineering activities, we are looking for a **Control and Automation Engineer, PAT Systems**.

Reporting to the R&D and Engineering teams, you will contribute to the development of **Pointing, Acquisition and Tracking (PAT)** systems for advanced Free-Space Optical (FSO) communication products.

PAT is a key function in laser communication systems: two terminals must identify each other, acquire the link and maintain a highly accurate beam alignment while the underlying platform is moving and subject to vibration. This role sits at the intersection of control theory, optics, precision mechanics, sensors and real-time embedded computing.

Working closely with the Pointing and Telecommunications Architect, you will own the control layer of the PAT chain from system models and control-law design to real-time implementation, bench testing and performance correlation. You will take your designs into hardware and validate their behaviour on real systems.* **Control Law Design:*

• Design, tune and validate control laws for fine and coarse pointing loops. Apply loop shaping and state-space techniques, including notch filters, resonators, feed-forward control, disturbance rejection and handover between fast and slow steering stages.* **Precision Servo Control:*
• Develop velocity and position-control functions for precision pointing mechanisms. Address non-ideal physical effects such as friction, stick-slip behaviour at low speed, actuator non-linearities, hysteresis, dead bands and multi-axis synchronisation.* **System Modelling & Simulation:*
• Build plant models covering actuators, structural dynamics and sensors. Develop end-to-end simulations of the complete pointing chain, integrating realistic disturbance spectra, delays, measurement noise and platform dynamics. Run Monte Carlo analyses to assess robustness and performance probability.* **Kinematics & Geometry:*
• Develop and maintain line-of-sight decomposition models, forward and inverse kinematics for steering mechanisms, calibration maps and reference-frame transformations from the platform down to the detector.* **Acquisition Strategy:*
• Define and optimise search and acquisition strategies, including scan patterns, dwell times, detection thresholds in noisy environments, acquisition probability, expected acquisition duration and transition to stable closed-loop tracking.* **Pointing Error Budgets:*
• Build, maintain and defend pointing-error budgets. Decompose the overall error into its contributors, allocate requirements across the control chain and substantiate performance through analysis and measurement.* **Real-Time Embedded Implementation:*
• Implement control algorithms on target hardware, using bare-metal or RTOS-based embedded C. Contribute to real-time architecture decisions, including sampling rates, timing, latency budgets, synchronisation and timestamping.* **Bench Testing & Correlation:*
• Develop and operate breadboards and test benches. Measure open-loop and closed-loop performance, frequency responses, disturbance rejection and residual jitter under controlled perturbations. Investigate model-to-test discrepancies and update models accordingly.* **System Integration:*
• Work closely with optical, mechanical, electrical, embedded software and system engineering teams to ensure that controls, sensors, actuators and optical performance are integrated coherently.## Preferred Experience* **Education:*
• Master’s degree or Engineering degree in Automation, Mechatronics, Robotics, Electrical Engineering or a related discipline. Equivalent practical experience may also be considered.* **Professional Background:*
• You have designed, implemented and measured at least one closed-loop control system on real hardwarecsuch as a precision stage, robotic system, stabilised payload, drone, optical bench or motion-control system.* **Technical Expertise:** + Strong proficiency in **MATLAB/Simulink** or an equivalent control design and simulation environment. + Solid command of classical and modern control techniques, including loop shaping, state-space control, stability-margin analysis, filtering, feed-forward control and disturbance rejection. + Experience modelling dynamic systems, including actuators, structures, sensors, delays, noise and non-linearities. + Ability to perform or support system identification and to correlate dynamic models with experimental measurements. + Practical understanding of precision actuator behaviour, including friction, stick-slip, hysteresis, dead bands, saturation and non-linear drive effects. + Knowledge of forward and inverse kinematics, calibration procedures and coordinate/reference-frame transformations + Experience with estimation and filtering techniques, such as Kalman filtering or observer-based approaches, is appreciated. + Proficiency in embedded **C** and the ability to deploy control functions on microcontroller, So

C or similar processing targets. + Understanding of real-time software constraints, including deterministic execution, sampling, latency, timing and timestamping. Experience with RTOS environments is a plus.* **Test & Measurement Skills:*

• Comfortable working hands-on in the laboratory, including measuring frequency responses, vibration spectra, jitter and closed-loop performance. You understand that a control model must be challenged and validated by measured data.* **Relevant Industry Experience:*
• Experience in optical pointing, adaptive optics, spacecraft attitude control, stabilised optronics, robotics, precision motion control, drones or high-performance mechatronic systems would be highly valued.* **Additional Skills:*
• Experience with camera or detector in the loop sensing, centroiding, vibration measurement, spectral analysis, FPGA/So

C data paths or pointing error budget methodologies would be a strong advantage.* **Mindset:*

• You combine strong theoretical foundations in control with a practical engineering mindset. You enjoy closing the loop on real hardware, diagnosing unexpected dynamic behaviour and turning experimental results into robust, deployable control solutions.* **English:*
• Professional working proficiency in English, with the ability to write technical documentation and communicate effectively with international suppliers, partners and engineering teams.## Additional Information
• Contract Type: **Full-Time**
• Start Date: **02 December 2026**
• Location: **Paris**
• Education Level: **Master's Degree**
• Experience: **> 5 years*** **Occasional remote authorized**
• Salary: **between 40000€ and 60000€ / year**

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