Henk A.P. “Henricus Albertus Petrus” Blom was born in The Netherlands (1953). He received BSc (1975) and MSc (1978) from the University of Twente, and PhD (1990) from Delft University of Technology. From 1980 through 2019 he was a staff member at Netherlands Aerospace Laboratory NLR. In 1988 he enjoyed a sabbatical at the University of Connecticut, USA. Since 2011 he holds a chair in Air Traffic Management Safety at Delft University of Technology.
Dr. Blom has in-depth experience in exploiting the theory of stochastic modeling and analysis in data fusion and in safety risk analysis, both with application to air traffic. He is (co-)author of 200 scientific articles, and is co-editor of the volume “Stochastic Hybrid Systems, Theory and Safety Critical Applications”, 2006. Dr. Blom has been elected to Fellow IEEE in 2007.
His data fusion research has exploited non-linear filtering theory for the development of the Interacting Multiple Model (IMM) algorithm, and track coalescence avoidance in joint probabilistic data association. He has given lead to the integration and performance evaluation of these methods in the Bayesian Multi-sensor multi-target tracking system ARTAS (Air traffic control Radar Tracker And Server) for EUROCONTROL. Complementary, he has combined IMM and track coalescence avoidance with particle filtering.
His safety research has focused on the integration of stochastic hybrid systems modelling and analysis with agent-based modeling and simulation of safety-critical socio-technical systems. A key component of this research is the development and use of variance reduction methods in the simulation of near-misses and mid-air collisions in air traffic. These developments have resulted in novel safety risk analysis methods, that enable early identification of unexpected positive and negative emergent behaviors in future air traffic designs.