Creation and renovation of Laboratorial Infrastructures

 

[LI03] Coordination of the project Renovation of the Computer Resources of ACCAII, July 2015, for an internal call by DEM with a total funding of 30.000 Euros. This initiative endowed the Scientific Area of new resources for all its academic courses.

[LI02] Creation of the project Mechatronics Laboratory - MECA-Lab - of the Scientific Area of Automation, Control, and Industrial Informatics of the Department of Mechanical Engineering of IST, in 2014. This initiative resulted from an internal DEM project, lead by the candidate, approved in 2013 with a total funding of 21.000 Euros. This laboratory facility supports the courses of Mechatronic Systems, Optimal Control, Integrated Production Control, and master theses.

 

[LI01] Creation of the Automation Laboratory at the Scientific Area of Systems, Decision, and Control of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. This initiative resulted from an internal IST project, in 2001. Several generations of Schneider PLCs were purchased and an internal network based on MODBUS was setup and made available to 50 students (on average) per semester until 2010/2011.

 

 

Creation and Restructuration of Courses

 

[CC12] Restructuration of the course Control of Nonlinear Systems of the PhD Program in in Electrical and Computer Engineering, in the academic year of 2020/2021, with the following syllabus: 1. Introduction to Nonlinear Systems; 2. Mathematical background; Most relevant properties; 3. Lyapunov stability for autonomous systems; 4. Advanced stability analysis; 5. Nonlinear control systems synthesis; 6. Motivation for nonlinear Detection, Estimation and Filtering; 7. Stochastic filtering – Kalman and extended Kalman filters. 8. New methods of estimation; 9. Analysis of cascaded and feedback nonlinear systems; 10. Examples of application, e.g. SLAM, Attitude estimation and control; Formations; Consensus; Extended linearization.

    [CC11] Course proposal on Guidance, Navigation and Control (8th semester, designed for 30 students), for the branch of Space in the future Master Degree in Aerospace Engineering, under the PERCIST restructuration of the degrees at IST. Syllabus: 1. Introduction to GNC; 2. Introduction to Project and selection of systems; 3. Sensor and Actuators in space environment; 4. State estimation and navigation; 5.  Modern control project; 6. Introduction to nonlinear control; 7. Guidance; 8.  Integrated design of GNC systems. Creation of a set of Laboratory Assignements for the students’ evaluation. To be validated and tested both in simulation and resorting to hardware-in-the-loop.

 

[CC10] Creation of the course Control of Nonlinear Systems of the PhD Program in Mechanical Engineering, in the academic year of 2016/2017, with the following syllabus: 1. Introduction to Nonlinear Systems; 2. Mathematical background; Most relevant properties; 3. Lyapunov stability for autonomous systems; 4. Advanced stability analysis; 5. Nonlinear control systems synthesis; 6. Motivation for nonlinear Detection, Estimation and Filtering; 7. Stochastic filtering – Kalman and extended Kalman filters. 8. New methods of estimation; 9. Analysis of cascaded and feedback nonlinear systems; 10. Examples of application, e.g. SLAM, Attitude estimation and control; Formations; Consensus; Extended linearization.

 

[CC09] Course of Advanced Mobile Robotics in the final phase of the MEMec and MEAer degrees, under the PERCIST degrees restructuration. This course, proposed by the candidate in his habilitation degree, aims at introducing recent advances in navigation systems, sensor fusion techniques, state of the art positioning and control systems, to tackle actual challenges on the robotics area, with the following syllabus: 1. Motivation for Advanced Mobile Robotics; 2. Robotic Systems in 2D and 3D; 3. Motion Sensors; 4. Positioning Systems; 5. Linear and Nonlinear Navigation Systems; 6. Guidance and Control Systems; 7. Trajectory Generation; 8. Other Challenges and Applications.

 

[CC08] Creation of the course Advanced Topics on Control – Detection, Estimation, and Filtering of the PhD Program in Mechanical Engineering, in the academic year of 2016/2017, with the following syllabus: 1. Introduction to Nonlinear Systems; 2. Mathematical background; Most relevant properties; 3. Lyapunov stability for autonomous systems; 4. Advanced stability analysis; 5. Nonlinear control systems synthesis; 6. Motivation for nonlinear Detection, Estimation and Filtering; 7. Stochastic filtering – Kalman and extended Kalman filters. 8. New methods of estimation; 9. Analysis of cascaded and feedback nonlinear systems; 10. Examples of application, e.g. SLAM, Attitude estimation and control; Formations; Consensus; Extended linearization.

 

[CC07] Creation of the course Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (8th semester, designed for 40 students), taught for the first time at the spring semester of 2017/2018. Lead by the candidate jointly with members of the scientific areas of ACCAII/DEM and SDC/DEEC, with the following syllabus: 1. Introduction to Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS); 2. Introduction to Design and Selection of the System; 3. Modern Control Design (Revisiting concepts); 4. Autopilot Design; 5.  Sensors for UAVs; 6. State Estimation; 7. Introduction to Nonlinear Control; 8. Guidance; 9.  Nonlinear Navigation and Control Systems; 10. Path Planning; and 11. Applications and Future of UAS. Creation of a set of Laboratory Assignements for the evaluation of skills of the students resorting to real time, identification, modeling, navigation, and control of quadcopter unmanned aerial vehicles. All solutions validated and tested both in simulation and resorting to the ARENA of ACCAII/DEM.

 

[CC06] Under the novel paradigm of Cyber-Physical Systems, covering the phases of design, analysis, and implementation of hybrid systems in embedded systems, the following restructuration of the course Mechatronic Systems of the MEMec degree, in the academic year of 2016/2017 is proposed. Topics covered: 1. Introduction to Cyber-physical systems; 2. Modeling Continuous Dynamic Systems; 3. Modeling Discrete Event Systems; 4. Hybrid Systems; 5. Advanced Models of Computation; 6. Design of Embedded Systems; 7. Introduction to Embedded Platforms; and 8. Mechatronics Projects Implemented in Embedded Platforms. Planned a seminar for the presentation of the topics chosen by the students, by the end of the semester.

 

[CC05] Restructuration of the course Advanced Topics on Control – Detection, Estimation, and Filtering of the PhD Program in Mechanical Engineering, in the academic year of 2012/2013. Topics covered: 1. Motivation for Estimation in Stochastic Signal Processing; 2. Minimum Variance Unbiased Estimation; 3. Cramer-Rao Lower Bound; 4. Linear Models in the Presence of Stochastic; 5. Best Linear Unbiased Filters; 6. Maximum Likelihood Estimation; 7. Least Squares; 8. Bayesian Filtering; 9. Wiener Filtering; 10. Kalman Filtering; 11. Multiple Model Adaptive Estimation; 12. Optimal Smoothing; and 13. Advanced Topics. Production of a collection of more then 300 slides (Slides) for the recitation classes and organization of a seminar for the presentation of the topics chosen by the students (topics from students).

 

[CC04] Restructuration of the course Dynamic Stochastic Estimation, Filtering, Prediction and Smoothing of the PhD Program in Electrical and Computer Engineering, in the academic year of 2008/2009. Topics covered: 1. Introduction to optimal estimation; 2. Review of probabilistic concepts; 3. Random processes and linear systems; 4. Response of linear systems to white noise inputs: discrete-time and continuous-time cases; 5. Approximation of continuous-time linear stochastic systems by discrete-time equivalents; 6. The Bayesian approach to parameter estimation; 7. The discrete-time Kalman filter. 8. The continuous-time Kalman-Bucy filter; 9. Derivation of the Kalman-Bucy filter using parameter optimization; 10. Kalman filter for continuous-time dynamics and discrete-time measurements; 11. The steady-state Kalman-Bucy filter: continuous-time case and discrete-time cases; 12. Correlated and colored plant and measurement noise; 13. Suboptimal nonlinear filtering algorithms: discrete-time; 13. The extended Kalman filter (EKF): continuous-time case; 14. Multiple model adaptive estimation (MMAE); 15. Optimal linear smoothing algorithms for discrete-time systems; 16. H∞ filtering and smoothing; 17. New methods for estimation: observers for special classes of systems; and 18. Nonlinear Observers with linearizable errors dynamics; Production of a collection of more then 100 slides (slides) to complement the original course and organization of a seminar for the presentation of the topics chosen by the students (topics from students).

 

[CC03] Creation of the course Detection, Estimation, and Filtering of the joint Portugal - Carnegie Mellon University PhD Program in Electrical and Computer Engineering, in the academic year of 2008/2009. Topics covered: 1. Motivation for Estimation in Stochastic Signal Processing; 2. Minimum Variance Unbiased Estimation; 3. Cramer-Rao Lower Bound; 4. Linear Models in the Presence of Stochastic; 5. Best Linear Unbiased; 6. Maximum Likelihood Estimation; 7. Least Squares; 8. Bayesian Filtering; and 9. Advanced Topics. Production of a collection of more then 300 slides (Slides) for the recitation classes and organization of a seminar for the presentation of the topics chosen by the students (topics from students).

 

[CC02] Creation and restructuration (for Bologna cycles of studies) of the course Automation of Industrial Process of the Master in Electrical and Computer Engineering, in the academic year of 2016/2017. Topics covered: 1. Introduction to Automation; 2. Introduction to PLCs; 3. PLCs Programming Languages; 4. GRAFCET; 5. CAD/CAM and CNC Machines; 6. Discrete Event Systems; 7. Analysis of DESs; 8. DESs and Industrial Automation; and 9. Supervision of Industrial Processes. Production of a collection of slides in Portuguese and English (Slides) for the recitation classes and organization of a series of seminars for the presentation of the topics chosen by the students (topics from students).

 

[CC01] Creation of the course Industrial Automation based on PLCs of the Licenciatura in Electrical and Computer Engineering, in the academic year of 2001/2002 (in Portuguese). Topics covered: 1. Introdução à Automação; 2. Introdução aos PLCs; 3. Linguagens de Programação de PLCs ; 4. GRAFCET; 5. Sistemas de Eventos Discretos; 6. Análise de Sistemas de Eventos Discretos; and 7. SEDs e Automação Industrial. Production of a collection of slides in Portuguese (Slides) for the recitation classes and organization of a series of seminars for the presentation of the topics chosen by the students.