About Me

I received my Bachelor of Science degree in Control and Automation Engineering from University of Brasília (UnB) in 2008, being awarded with the best student prize, given by the Faculty of Technology and the Rector of University of Brasília.

In 2007, I was accepted to the Internship Program of Johnson Controls’ building efficiency division (Brasília branch) and, just after graduating, I was hired as an Application Engineer. In this position, I designed and commissioned a myriad of building automation systems, managed the installation teams, and participated in the drafting of the winning technical proposal for the Local Area Network bidding process of Quito’s New International Airport.

In early 2009, I joined the Master’s program in Electronics and Computer Engineering of the Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica. By the end of that year, I was accepted into the direct Ph.D. program at the same institution, which was concluded in 2012. My studies were funded by a scholarship from the project FINEP/CTA/INPE SIA (Inertial Systems for Aerospace Applications, in Portuguese), which was created by the Brazilian government to develop the national aerospace program. My thesis title is Distributed Estimation of Errors in Aided Inertial Navigation Systems and it can be obtained in the Publications section.

By the end of 2012, I received a post-doctoral scholarship from FAPESP, a public foundation funded by the taxpayer in the State of São Paulo, with the mission to support research projects in higher education and research institutions in all fields of knowledge. In this project, I continued my Ph.D. research studying fault detection in distributed sensor networks with communication delays.

In July 2013, I joined the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research (INPE) as a space systems engineer and researcher. At INPE, I worked on the Brazilian satellite Amazonia 1, launched on February 28, 2021, as Mission Architect and technical lead for the attitude and orbit control subsystem (AOCS). I currently hold the same responsibilities in the Amazonia 1B, CBERS 06, and CO2Image satellite projects.

In addition to mission architecture and AOCS activities, I develop scientific and engineering software at INPE to support mission studies, system-level validation, and satellite design. This work includes the development of the next version of INPE’s AOCS software, SatelliteDesign.jl, and Forplan Satellite Simulator, as well as tools used in the context of the missions listed on the homepage.

I also contribute to open-source projects in Julia, especially within the JuliaSpace ecosystem. My work includes packages for orbital analysis, orbit propagation, reference-frame transformations, space-environment models, telemetry analysis, and supporting tools for scientific computing.

Academic experience#

• Ph.D. in Electronics Engineering (2012)
  Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica (ITA)
  Sub-area: Systems and control
  Thesis: Distributed Estimation of Errors in Aided Inertial Navigation Systems.

• B.Sc. in Control and Automation Engineering (2008)
  University of Brasília
  GPA: 4.96 / 5.00
  Honored with the best student award by the Faculty of Technology and the Rector of University of Brasília.

Professional experience#

• Space System Engineer and Researcher (July 2013 — present)
  Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE)
  Responsibilities include: space mission analysis; specification of attitude and orbit control subsystem (AOCS); design of strategies and procedures for satellite attitude and orbit control; mathematical modeling of AOCS sensors and actuators; dynamic modeling of satellite attitude and orbit; development of analysis and simulation software for satellite trajectory and attitude; perform functional and performance testing of AOCS sensors and actuators; pointing, power, and fuel balancing; and estimation of satellite lifetime.

• Post-doctoral researcher (December 2012 — July 2013)
  Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica (ITA)
  Research project: Fault Detection in Distributed Sensors Networks with Communication Delays.

• Application Engineer (July 2008 — January 2009)
  Johnson Controls — Building Efficiency division
  Actively participated in the drafting of the winning technical proposal for the Local Area Network of Quito’s New International Airport.

• Intern (July 2007 — July 2008)
  Johnson Controls — Building Efficiency division