Sven Bilén

Sven has over three decades of experience designing, building, and fielding innovative systems for harsh and demanding environments—from space to the Arctic. He employs a systems design approach to ensure mission success, translating early-stage needs into verified requirements and validated deployed systems. Since 2000, Sven has been on the faculty at Penn State, where he is professor of engineering design, electrical engineering, and aerospace engineering, reflecting his belief that innovation happens at the interfaces of disciplines. Building on the success of the PennStateDen@Mars team in NASA’s 3D-Printed Mars Habitat Challenge, Sven helped found the Additive Construction Laboratory (AddCon Lab) at Penn State. Employing his broad skills set, Sven has built satellites and satellite systems; wireless sensor networks; cognitive and software-defined radio systems; and robotic concrete printing systems. Sven has a strong interest in seeing technologies he has worked on and advanced within a university research environment to get “into the wild”. Prior to becoming a co-founder of X-Hab 3D, he has been part of several start-ups that commercialized these technologies. Sven is a registered professional engineer in Pennsylvania. He is also a senior member of IEEE, associate fellow of AIAA, and member of AGU, ASEE, INCOSE, and Sigma Xi.