A. Pedro Aguiar received the Licenciatura (5-year university degree), M.S. and Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), University of Lisbon, Portugal in 1994, 1998 and 2002, respectively. Currently, Dr. Aguiar is a Full Professor with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (DEEC), Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto (FEUP). He is also Director of ARISE - Advanced Production and Intelligent Systems Associate Laboratory, Scientific Coordinator of SYSTEC - Research Center for Systems and Technologies, and Head of Cyber-Physical Control Systems and Robotics lab (C2SR). From 2002 to 2005, he was a post-doctoral researcher at the Center for Control, Dynamical-Systems, and Computation at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). From 2005 to 2012, he was a senior researcher with the Institute for Systems and Robotics at IST, and an invited assistant professor with the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, IST, Lisbon. 

His main research interests are in the area of Signals, Control Systems and Robotics, including modeling, control, navigation, and guidance of autonomous robotic vehicles, nonlinear control, switched and hybrid systems, tracking, path-following, performance limitations, nonlinear observers, the integration of machine vision with feedback control, networked control, and coordinated/cooperative control of multiple autonomous robotic vehicles.

Further information related to Dr. Aguiar’s research can be found at the Cyber-Physical Control Systems and Robotics lab (C2SR) and http://paginas.fe.up.pt/~apra

Gil Gonçalves is Associate Professor with Habilitation at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto (FEUP) in the Department of Informatics Engineering (DEI). 

Gil is the Coordinator of the thematic line SYSTEC- MANUFACTURING in the SYSTEC RD Unit and responsible for the DIGITAL and InTelligent Industry laboratory, a research laboratory that involves faculty members from the Departments of Informatics Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Mechanical Enginering from FEUP.

With extensive experience in research and innovation, Gil has been involved in over 60 National and European RTD projects and studies, as Principal Investigator in many of them, to promote digital transformation in different sectors like manufacturing, health and agri-food.

Principal Investigator in several European RTD projects including “Vendor Integrated Decentralized Optimization of Production Facilities” (VIDOP), funded by EC FP5, and “FleXible Production Experts for reconfigurable aSSembly technology” (XPRESS), funded by EC FP6, “Intelligent Network Devices for fast Ramp-Up” (I-RAMP3), funded by EC FP7, “Innovative Reuse of modular knowledge Based devices and technologies for Old, Renewed and New factories” (ReBorn) funded by EC FP7, “Innovative strategies for Renovation and Repair in Manufacturing systems” (SelSus) funded by EC FP7, “RE-manufaCturing and Refurbishment LArge Industrial equipment” (RECLAIM) funded by EC Horizon 2020 and “Open platform for realizing zero defects in cyber-physical manufacturing” (OpenZDM) funded by EC Horizon Europe. These projects had as target end-users’ companies from the automotive, aerospace and electrical industry and included partners such as Daimler-Chrysler, FIAT, Volkswagen, Kuka Systems, Comau, Harms+Wende, Airbus, SONAE, Vidrala, etc.

Expert evaluator in national and European Research and Innovation programmes, including in several Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe evaluation panels and in many cascade funding programmes.

Part of the team from the Underwater Systems and Technology Laboratory at Porto University that won the BES Innovation prize (CNIBES) in 2006 with the project SeaScout (Light Autonomous Underwater Vehicle for Oceanographic Surveys). Involved in the project “Marine Systems and Technologies” financed by the Portuguese Innovation Agency, under the program NEOTEC (creation of technology-based companies), for the creation of a high-tech spin-off based on research results. Since 2006 he has been the founder of 4 other technology-based start-ups.

He (co-)authored over 150 publications (reports, journal papers and conference articles) in areas related to innovation, ICT, eHealth, eGovernment, entrepreneurship, industry 4.0, manufacturing, robotics and control.

Gil is currently the Chairman of the General Assembly of the National Portuguese ICT Cluster (TICE.PT).

Armando Araújo obteve o grau de Doutor em Engenharia Eletrotécnica e Computadores em 1998 pela Universidade do Porto. Presentemente é Professor Auxiliar no Departamento de Engenharia Eletrotécnica e Computadores da Faculdade de Engenharia Universidade do Porto onde ensina unidades curriculares nas áreas da electrónica analógica, electrónica de potência, electrónica automóvel e electrónica de aquisição e processamento de sinal, no âmbito do Mestrado Integrado em Engenharia Eletrotécnica e Computadores.
A sua  área de investigação prende-se com modelização, simulação, projecto, dimensionamento e controlo de sistemas electrónicos de potência para aplicações de mobilidade eléctrica e de interface entre a rede e sistemas de produção de energia renovável.
A atividade de investigação é desenvolvida no SYSTEC (Research Center for Systems and Technologies).
É membro da Ordem dos Engenheiros. 

Fernando A.C.C. Fontes is Associate Professor, with Habilitation, in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto (FEUP), and researcher in Systec - Institute of Systems and Robotics – Porto (ISR),  Associated Laboratory ARISE.

He received his first degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Porto, the M.Sc. in Control Systems, and the Ph.D. degrees from the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Imperial College London, U.K. In 2014 he received the Habilitation degree (Agregação)  in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Porto.

He started his academic career in the  Department of Mathematics of the University of Minho, Portugal. He taught in the Department of Operational Research at LSE - The London School of Economics and was a Research Assistant in the Centre for Process Systems Engineering at Imperial College London. In 2015/16 he was a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Texas A&M University.

At the University of Minho, he served as Director of the first degree in Applied Mathematics (2003-05), Deputy-head of Department (2002-05), and Head of the Department (2006-07). 

In 2009, he moved to his present position at the Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto. He joined the Institute of Systems and Robotics – Porto (Systec- ISR). Presently,  he coordinates the LSCOE laboratory of Systec, as well as the thematic line Intelligent Systems and Robotics of ARISE-LA.

He has been teaching in the areas of Mathematics, Signal Processing, Systems and Control, as well as Automation and Robotics.

His research interests are in optimization and control theory, having a specific interest in nonlinear and constrained problems, optimal control, and model predictive control.
His main scientific contributions are in model predictive control (stability and robustness conditions for nonlinear and sampled-data systems), in optimal control (stronger forms of the maximum principle and numerical methods), and in nonlinear optimization methods (dynamic programming based and other global optimization algorithms).

Lately, he has been interested in the application of these methodologies to robotics and to energy systems, in particular to Airborne Wind Energy Systems, where he coordinates the project UPWIND (www.upwind.pt). 

Dr. Daniel G. Costa is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (DEEC), Faculty of Engineering (FEUP), University of Porto (Portugal). He completed his undergraduate degree in Computer Engineering in 2005 and received his Ph.D. degree in Computer and Electrical Engineering in 2013 from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (Natal, Brazil) in collaboration with the University of Porto. From 2007 to 2022, he served as an assistant professor at the State University of Feira de Santana (Brazil).

He is coordinator of the Laboratory of Emerging Smart Systems (LES2) at SYSTEC, a research laboratory dedicated to research in the areas of Smart Cities, Autonomous Vehicles, Industry 4.0 and Cyber-Physical Systems.

Dr. Costa has authored or co-authored over 100 scientific papers published in prestigious international journals and conferences. His research interests cover a wide range of cutting-edge areas, including Smart Cities, Internet of Things, Sensor Networks, Embedded Systems, and Multimedia Sensing.

In 2021 and 2022, he was in the list of top 2% cited researchers.

João P. S. Catalão is a Full Professor ("Professor Catedrático") at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto, Portugal. He is an IEEE Fellow, class of 2022. He was a Highly Cited Researcher in the field of Engineering in 2023. He is among the Top 2% of Scientists, since 2019, and a Best Scientist 2022-2024 in Research.com.

He has coauthored more than 500 journal publications, with an h-index of 106 and more than 42,000 citations (according to Google Scholar), having supervised more than 140 researchers (post-docs, Ph.D. and M.Sc. students, and other students with project grants).

He was the General Chair of SEST 2019 (technically co-sponsored by IEEE), after being the inaugural Technical Chair and co-founder of SEST 2018. He was the Editor of two CRC Press Books: “Electric Power Systems: Advanced Forecasting Techniques and Optimal Generation Scheduling” (2012) and “Smart and Sustainable Power Systems: Operations, Planning and Economics of Insular Electricity Grids” (2015).

He is a Senior Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems, a Senior Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics: Systems, and a Senior Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems Part II: Express Briefs. He was an IEEE CIS Fellows Committee Member in 2022-2024 (three consecutive years). He was elected Full Member of Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society, in 2023.

He was recognized as an Outstanding Associate Editor 2023 of the IEEE Transactions on Emerging Topics in Computational Intelligence, an Outstanding Associate Editor 2021 of the IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, and an Outstanding Senior Associate Editor 2020 of the IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid. Furthermore, he has won 5 Best Paper Awards at IEEE Conferences.

His research interests include power system operations and planning, power system economics and electricity markets, distributed renewable generation, demand response, smart grid, and multi-energy carriers.