Radek Salac

Department

Research & Development Department

Job Title

Head of Research & Development

INSTRUCTION LANGUAGES

English, Czech

PERSONAL BIO

During Radek Salac's professional career, he has gained extensive experience in various roles within the field of research and development, spanning over a total of 18 years.

In his current role as the Head of Research and Development at ATG, he was responsible for overseeing a wide range of activities and functions within the department. This included managing daily workloads and resources, as well as direct involvement in the R&D function from the establishment of the department. He played a pivotal role in determining the department's strategy, aligning it with the company's overall goals, and engaging in negotiations with clients to estimate costs based on their requirements. Additionally, he conducted feasibility studies of client-desired solutions and collaborated closely with other departments and research organizations. His responsibilities also encompassed delivering, designing, and implementing project solutions for both internal development and external company customers. He successfully acquired and administered development projects financed by public funds and ensured smooth oversight of the projects pipeline within the R&D department.

In addition to his managerial responsibilities, he actively participated in technical tasks, including programming and code review in various languages such as PLC, SCADA, SQL, Labview, and others. He also contributed to the design of technical, technological, and programming solutions and architectures. Providing professional and technical consultations, onboarding and mentoring interns and student associates, and assigning responsibilities were integral parts of his role.

Radek's key development areas included expertise in complex automatic technologies and equipment for Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) of materials, covering ultrasonic, magnetic particle, penetration, eddy currents testing, visual inspection, and digital radiography. He was also involved in vision system integration and the development of artificial intelligence methods for automatic evaluation of surface defects and indications for industrial applications. Furthermore, he played a significant role in the development and integration of automatic manipulation and robotic systems, including vision navigation based on artificial intelligence methods.

WORK EXPERIENCE AND AWARDS

Head of Research And Development, ATG, Czech Republic (2015-present)
Senior analyst and programmer (chief analyst of credit cards accounting system), GE Money Bank, Czech Republic (2010-2015)
PLC programmer, Lang und Peitler, Czech Republic (2008-2010)
Developer and programmer, ATG, Czech Republic (2001-2008)

Key Projects:

Automatic system for visual testing of bearings using machine learning methodology
Automatic ultrasonic manipulators for inspection of structural defects on composite materials
Autonomous robotic systems for ultrasonic and eddy current inspection of structural defects on metal and composite parts of complex shapes
Automated magnetizers for testing parts of complex shape by means of magnetic particle testing
Automated equipment for testing the quality of rotating parts of aircraft engines using the ultrasonic immersion method

EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND

Master in Material Engineering, University of Chemistry and Technology in Prague (UCT Prague), Czech Republic

VacancIES

Brief Introduction of the Department

【Research & Development Department】

Research& Development department has been established in 2016. Main goal of the department is to deliver comprehensive technology solutions and helps the ATG company to be a global technology leader in Non-Destructive Testing (NDT). Currently, the department activities are focused on fully autonomous NDT systems in accordance with Industry 4.0 principles, that are usually implemented to highly customized NDT devices, equipment and systems. Main focus of the company as well as the department is in magnetic particle testing (MT), ultrasonic testing (UT), visual testing (VT), penetrant testing (PT), eddy-current testing (ET) and radiography testing (RT) methods of NDT. These methods are various physics principles used to detect structural defects in industrial products (e.g.: airplanes, pressure vessels, cars …) that may endanger their safe operation, potentially causing financial losses or even losses on lives. Any of the above mentioned methods requires further development and integration of software, electronics, control systems, vision systems, manipulators, robotic systems, water managements, special components, self-diagnostics and calibrations systems etc. The R&D staff is specialized on various areas like programming of the desktop applications, control of PLC and the robotic systems, designing of the optical and vision systems, etc. All projects may be categorized as a highly applied research and development, having tangible outputs in real-life applications on the equipment for ATG´s customers from aerospace, railway, automotive, oil & gas and other industries.

Department Staff Number

More than 10 people

Internship Job Description

The job is focused on experimental activities, measurement, optimization work, and programming related to the development of unique, autonomous magnetic particle testing (MT) devices, which use magnetic fields and special liquids bearing ferromagnetic particles to visualize invisible defects on the surface of tested products and components.

Such an MT device has several critical components, the most important of which include:

Magnetization devices and current circuits, along with current and process controls,
Electromagnetic field measurement and self-diagnostic systems,
Robotic systems for part and camera manipulation and measurement,
Optical devices and vision systems, and
Computer vision software and algorithms.

These components may be grouped into two main areas — electromagnetic application tasks and vision/programming application tasks.

Electromagnetic tasks include electromagnetic field measurement using robotic equipment, automated measurement of magnetic particle suspension concentrations, optimization and testing of robotic manipulation systems, and process/measurement experiments.

Vision tasks include verifying etalons and gauges, optimizing optical diagnostic functions, re-verifying data sets, reconstructing camera images, masking images of tested parts, and optimizing and testing Automated Defect Recognition (ADR) systems.

Based on the interest and background of the intern, one or both directions can be the focus of the internship.

Preferred Intern Education Level

Undergraduate students (third year and above)
Master students
Doctoral students

Preferred Intern Skill Sets or Qualities

Laboratory measurements and/or
Structural (mechanical) design and/or
Material science and metallurgy and/or
Electricity and magnetism and/or
Robotics and automation and/or
Python programming and/or
Control system (PLC) programming and/or
Embedded programming and/or
Vision / optical systems experience
English Level B2 as minimum and English Level C1 as significant advantage
Proof of level (FCE/CAE/IELTS/TOEFL or equivalent) is a significant advantage

Internship Period

From June 14 to September 5, 2027 (adjustable at the discretion of the organisation)

‍

Others

Expected working hours per week: 40 hours
Salary/Financial Support: CZK 11000 per month & Voyage of Aspiration Intern Scholarship
Stipends for successful interns (amount based on performance)

Brief Introduction of the Department

【Research & Development Department】

Research & Development department has been established in 2016. Main goal of the department is to deliver comprehensive technology solutions and helps the ATG company to be a global technology leader in Non-Destructive Testing (NDT). Currently, the department activities are focused on fully autonomous NDT systems in accordance with Industry 4.0 principles, that are usually implemented to highly customized NDT devices, equipment and systems. Main focus of the company as well as the department is in magnetic particle testing (MT), ultrasonic testing (UT), visual testing (VT), penetrant testing (PT), eddy-current testing (ET) and radiography testing (RT) methods of NDT. These methods are various physics principles used to detect structural defects in industrial products (e.g.: airplanes, pressure vessels, cars …) that may endanger their safe operation, potentially causing financial losses or even losses on lives. Any of the above mentioned methods requires further development and integration of software, electronics, control systems, vision systems, manipulators, robotic systems, water managements, special components, self-diagnostics and calibrations systems etc. The R&D staff is specialized on various areas like programming of the desktop applications, control of PLC and the robotic systems, designing of the optical and vision systems, etc. All projects may be categorized as a highly applied research and development, having tangible outputs in real-life applications on the equipment for ATG´s customers from aerospace, railway, automotive, oil & gas and other industries.

Department Staff Number

More than 10 people

Internship Job Description

Generally, the job is focused on experimental activities, measurement, optimization work, and partially programming work related to ultrasonic testing (UT) and/or phased array UT (PAUT). As a non-destructive testing (NDT) method, ultrasonic testing uses high-frequency sound propagation (usually > 500 kHz), a set of emitters and receivers, and a liquid couplant (such as water or a specialized liquid) to detect and characterize subsurface structural defects in metallic and/or composite products.

Research and development activities are focused on automated ultrasonic immersion systems for the testing of shaped composite structures for the aerospace industry, metal rings, spot welds, and similar materials. The system consists of a robotic system or Cartesian manipulator, an ultrasonic system with an appropriately designed probe head, and data acquisition (DAQ), display, and analytical software.

The development can be divided into three main topics:

Measurement and inspection of composite or metal structures,
Improvement and optimization of currently developed technologies, and
Programming new software functions.

Measurement and inspection of appropriate structures includes inspecting the material using several ultrasonic techniques and different types of probes, as well as collecting, comparing, and evaluating area scans.

Improvements to system components include optimizing water circuits, 3D-printed heads, extenders, mirrors, holders, robot trajectories, and end effectors, etc.

Programming new software functions in the National Instruments LabVIEW development environment (or partially in Python) includes statistical functions, image processing functions, result measurement features, record display, and Total Focusing Method (TFM) reconstruction, etc.

Based on the interest and background of the intern, one or more directions can be the focus of the internship.

Preferred Intern Education Level

Undergraduate students (third year and above)
Master students
Doctoral students

Preferred Intern Skill Sets or Qualities

Laboratory measurements and/or
Structural (mechanical) design and/or
LABview programming and/or
Python programming and/or
Control system (PLC) programming and/or
English Level B2 as minimum and English Level C1 as significant advantage
Proof of level (FCE/CAE/IELTS/TOEFL or equivalent) is a significant advantage

Internship Period

From June 14 to September 5, 2027 (adjustable at the discretion of the organisation)

Others

Expected working hours per week: 40 hours
Salary/Financial Support: CZK 11000 per month & Voyage of Aspiration Intern Scholarship
Stipends for successful interns (amount based on performance)