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Ricardo Bencatel received his degree in Mechanical Engineering and his Ph.D degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Porto, Portugal, in 2006 and 2012. He was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA, until 2016, where he also lectured the course Flight Dynamics and Control during 2 semesters. He is presently the technical director at 4DC Tech, Portugal, with research interests in control applications to foiling boats, unmanned aircraft, and automotive systems. Ricardo Bencatel started working with unmanned aircraft in 2005, taking important technical roles in projects (AsasF and PITVANT) focused on the development of automatic control methods for heterogeneous teams of aircraft, at the University of Porto and in close collaboration with the Portuguese Air Force. His PhD thesis titled Perpetual Flight in Flow Fields discusses how flight control can be tailored to harvest energy from the wind and other atmospheric phenomena. At the University of Michigan, he got involved in several projects involving the control of multiple rotary wing aircraft. That experience together with the continued study of fixed wing aircraft dynamics and control lead him to start a personal project with VTOLs, focused on the control of smooth transitions between vertical and horizontal flight modes. Most recently, Ricardo Bencatel has been applying his flight control know how to the automatic control of naturally unstable hydro-foiling boats, with clients like SeaBubbles and several America's Cup teams. He has designed, implemented, and validated in operational boats controllers to track the ride height, pitch, and roll, even in challenging sea conditions. He has also worked on automatic course control, as a step towards automatic driving.
Identification

Personal identification

Full name
Ricardo Ayres Gomes Bencatel

Citation names

  • BENCATEL, RICARDO

Author identifiers

Ciência ID
F01A-B316-301A
ORCID iD
0000-0002-6837-3183

Email addresses

  • ricardo.bencatel@fe.up.pt (Professional)
  • bencatel@4dc-tech.com (Professional)

Knowledge fields

  • Engineering and Technology - Mechanical Engineering - Mechanical Engineering
  • Engineering and Technology - Mechanical Engineering - Aerospace Engineering
  • Engineering and Technology - Electrotechnical Engineering, Electronics and Informatics - Automation and Control Systems

Languages

Language Speaking Reading Writing Listening Peer-review
Portuguese (Mother tongue)
English Proficiency (C2) Proficiency (C2) Advanced (C1) Advanced (C1)
Spanish; Castilian Intermediate (B1) Elementary (A2) Beginner (A1) Upper intermediate (B2)
French Beginner (A1) Intermediate (B1) Beginner (A1) Elementary (A2) Beginner (A1)
Education
Degree Classification
2008/01/01 - 2012/07/31
Concluded
Douctoral Program in Electrical and Computer Engineering (Doutoramento)
Universidade do Porto Faculdade de Engenharia, Portugal
"Perpetual Flight in Flow Fields" (THESIS/DISSERTATION)
Approved
2001/10/01 - 2006/07/31
Concluded
Mechanical Engineering (Licenciatura)
Major in Automatic Control
Universidade do Porto Faculdade de Engenharia, Portugal
"Unmanned Air Vehicles" (THESIS/DISSERTATION)
15
2001/06/30
Concluded
Science (Ensino secundário)
Escola de Secundária Rodrigues de Freitas, Portugal
18,0
Affiliation

Science

Category
Host institution
Employer
2012/10/01 - 2016/01/31 Postdoc (Research) Universidade de Michigan, United States
University of Michigan, United States
2006/10/01 - 2012/09/30 Researcher (Research) Universidade do Porto Centro de Investigação em Sistemas e Tecnologias, Portugal
Universidade do Porto Faculdade de Engenharia, Portugal
2005/10/01 - 2006/07/31 Researcher (Research) Instituto de Engenharia Mecanica e Gestao Industrial, Portugal
Instituto de Engenharia Mecanica e Gestao Industrial, Portugal

Others

Category
Host institution
Employer
2020/07/01 - Current Business MobyFly, Switzerland
2020/03/01 - Current Business FlowHy, United States
2016/02/01 - Current Business 4DC Tech, Portugal
2015/10/01 - 2016/04/30 Competition Oracle Team USA, Bermuda
Outputs

Publications

Book chapter
  1. BENCATEL, RICARDO. "Unmanned Aircraft Systems for Maritime Operations". 2787-2811. Springer, 2014.
    10.1007/978-90-481-9707-1_75
Conference paper
  1. Ran Tian; BENCATEL, RICARDO; Anouck Renée Girard; Ilya Kolmanovsky. "Coordinated Control of Active Steering and Differential Braking Using Extended Command Governor for Rollover Avoidance". 2017.
    10.1115/DSCC2017-5033
  2. Zhao, J.; Seok, J.; Selvakumar, J.; Bencatel, R.; Kabamba, P.; Girard, A.. "A greedy policy for fleet-level radar resource management". 2013.
    10.1109/CDC.2013.6760365
  3. Prodan, I.; Bencatel, R.; Olaru, S.; De Sousa, J.B.; Stoica, C.; Niculescu, S.-I.. "Predictive control for autonomous aerial vehicles trajectory tracking". 2012.
    10.3182/20120823-5-NL-3013.00078
  4. Bencatel, R.; Faied, M.; Sousa, J.; Girard, A.R.. "Formation control with collision avoidance". 2011.
    10.1109/CDC.2011.6160637
  5. Bencatel, R.; Sousa, J.; Faied, M.; Girard, A.. "Shear wind estimation". 2011.
  6. Bencatel, R.. "Thermal localization". 2010.
    10.1109/AIS.2010.5547048
  7. Correia, J.; Bencatel, R.; Marçal, A.R.S.; Puga, A.; Sousa, J.B.; Gonçalves, G.M.. "Video based motion tracking and river detection with an unmanned aerial vehicle". 2009.
  8. Bencatel, R.; Correia, J.; Sousa, J.B.; Gonçalves, G.M.; Pereira, E.. "Video tracking control algorithms for unmanned air vehicles". 2009.
  9. Jackson, J.; Bencatel, R.; Hasan, Z.; Girard, A.. "Stochastic patrolling and collision avoidance for two UAVs in a base defense scenario". 2009.
  10. Almeida, P.; Bencatel, R.; Gonçalves, G.M.; Sousa, J.B.; Ruetz, C.. "Experimental results on command and control of unmanned air vehicle systems". 2007.
Journal article
  1. BENCATEL, RICARDO. "Full State Feedback Foiling Control for America’s Cup Catamarans". Transactions on Control System Technology (2019):
  2. Ricardo Bencatel; Ran Tian; Anouck R. Girard; Ilya Kolmanovsky. "Reference Governor Strategies for Vehicle Rollover Avoidance". IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology 26 6 (2018): 1954-1969. https://doi.org/10.1109/TCST.2017.2753168.
    10.1109/TCST.2017.2753168
  3. BENCATEL, RICARDO. "Homing Guidance Using Spatially Quantized Signals". Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement, and Control 139 6 (2017): http://dx.doi.org/10.1115/1.4035610.
    10.1115/1.4035610
  4. BENCATEL, RICARDO. "Perpetual Dynamic Soaring in Linear Wind Shear". Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics 37 5 (2014): 1712-1716. http://dx.doi.org/10.2514/1.g000425.
    10.2514/1.g000425
  5. Prodan, I.; Olaru, S.; Bencatel, R.; Borges de Sousa, J.; Stoica, C.; Niculescu, S.-I.. "Receding horizon flight control for trajectory tracking of autonomous aerial vehicles". Control Engineering Practice 21 10 (2013): 1334-1349. http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-84881505580&partnerID=MN8TOARS.
    10.1016/j.conengprac.2013.05.010
  6. Bencatel, R.; Tasso De Sousa, J.; Girard, A.. "Atmospheric flow field models applicable for aircraft endurance extension". Progress in Aerospace Sciences 61 (2013): 1-25. http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-84880747848&partnerID=MN8TOARS.
    10.1016/j.paerosci.2013.03.001
  7. Pereira, E.; Bencatel, R.; Correia, J.; Félix, L.; Gonçalves, G.; Morgado, J.; Sousa, J.. "Unmanned air vehicles for coastal and environmental research". Journal of Coastal Research SPEC. ISSU (2009): 1557-1561. http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-79953762168&partnerID=MN8TOARS.
Thesis / Dissertation
  1. BENCATEL, RICARDO. "Perpetual Flight in Flow Fields". 2012. https://hdl.handle.net/10216/65591.
Activities

Oral presentation

Presentation title Event name
Host (Event location)
2010/06/24 Thermal localization International Conference on Autonomous and Intelligent Systems
IEEE (Póvoa de Varzim, Portugal)
2010 Shear Wind Estimation Guidance, Navigation, and Control Conference
American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (Oregon, United States)
2007/09 Experimental results on Command and Control of Unmanned Air Vehicle Systems IAV 2007
(Toulouse, France)
2007/06 Apollo framework for Unmanned Air Vehicle systems: experimental results UAV 2007
UVS International (Paris, France)
2007/04/28 Multi-UAV Integration for coordinated missions Robótica 2006
(Guimarães, Portugal)

Supervision

Thesis Title
Role
Degree Subject (Type)
Institution / Organization
2023/02 - 2023/07/20 Complete Kalman Filter for "flying" boats (with hydrofoils)
Co-supervisor of Gabriel Pizzighini Salvador
Master in Electrical and Computer Engineering (Master)
Universidade do Porto Faculdade de Engenharia, Portugal
2022/03/04 - 2023/05 Structural Analysis and Optimization of MobyFly-10m Boat Composite Hydrofoils
Co-supervisor of Maria João Robalo Portijo e Silva
Master in Mechanical Engineering (Master)
Universidade de Lisboa Instituto Superior Técnico, Portugal
2022/02/21 - 2022/10/06 Wave Pattern Estimation for Hydrofoiling Boats
Supervisor of Jorge Miguel Natal da Silva Soares
Master in Electrical and Computer Engineering (Master)
Universidade do Porto Faculdade de Engenharia, Portugal
2022/03/01 - 2022/10 Advanced methods for foiling control and evaluation
Co-supervisor of Rui Sobreira Amorim de Sousa
Master in Mechanical Engineering (Master)
Universidade do Porto Faculdade de Engenharia, Portugal

Jury of academic degree

Topic
Role
Candidate name (Type of degree)
Institution / Organization
2017/03/19 Development of a nose landing gear of an unmanned aircraft (RPAS)
(Thesis) Arguer
José Miguel Casaca Faria Silva (Master)
Universidade do Porto Faculdade de Engenharia, Portugal
2011/03/26 Drone de combate aos incêndios florestais
(Thesis) Arguer
Lucia Moura (Master)
Universidade do Porto Faculdade de Engenharia, Portugal

Consulting

Activity description Institution / Organization
2021/09/01 - Current Development, test, and validation of an automatic "flight" control system for racing yachts equipped with hydrofoil Flying Nikka, Spain
2015/12/01 - Current Development, test, and validation of an automatic "flight" control system for commercial boats equipped with hydrofoils Fast Forward Composites, United States

SeaBubbles, France

MobyFly, Switzerland

Futur-E, Italy
2014/09/01 - 2015/03/31 America's Cup - Development, test, and validation of an automatic "flight" control system for racing yachts equipped with hydrofoil Luna Rossa - Prada, Italy

Course / Discipline taught

Academic session Degree Subject (Type) Institution / Organization
2014/01/05 - 2014/04/30 Aircraft Dynamics and Control Aerospace Engineering (Bachelor) University of Michigan Department of Aerospace Engineering, United States
2013/09/01 - 2013/12/20 Aircraft Dynamics and Control Aerospace Engineering (Bachelor) University of Michigan Department of Aerospace Engineering, United States
Distinctions

Other distinction

2007 Best students (10%) of Mechanical Engineering, 2006
Universidade do Porto Faculdade de Engenharia, Portugal
2005 Best student of the course "Instrumentation for Measurement"
Universidade do Porto Faculdade de Engenharia, Portugal