Roelof Vos is an assistant professor at the chair of Flight Performance and Propulsion. He specializes in the assessment of new aviation technologies and aircraft configurations that enable more fuel-efficient air transport. To support this, he develops dedicated software that enables the assessment of new technologies with respect to important aircraft characteristics such as fuel consumption, aircraft weight, and aerodynamic efficiency. This has resulted in the Aircraft Design Initiator, an automated aircraft synthesis program that is used throughout numerous externally-funded projects. By continuously adapting this program it can be used to assess the impact of new aviation technologies on.

Technologies that have recently been studied with this program include: hybrid-electric propulsion systems, maneuver-load alleviation through wing movables, and  liquefied natural gas as fuel. Furthermore, aircraft configurations with tail-mounted propellers, blended-wing bodies, and a propulsive empennage have been studied. A completely new aircraft configuration for long-haul travel, the so-called Flying V, has recently been studied in terms of aerodynamic performance (CFD an wind tunnel tests), cabin design, and structural weight.