19/12/2023

Fábio Suim takes on research at a university in Norway.

Fábio Suim, a postdoctoral researcher at Visgraf (the Computer Graphics Laboratory at IMPA), will take up a research position at the University of Southeast Norway in January of next year. In Kongsberg, he will join a team formed to develop potential safety solutions for drone air traffic. The research, which involves the use of artificial intelligence, includes the participation of six European countries.

“They are predicting an airspace in Europe that is overloaded and clogged with drones and commercial aviation. Furthermore, there is a focus on eVTOLs, which are vehicles that take off and land vertically and are intended for passenger transport, a project also being developed by Embraer. Therefore, they have some concerns such as preventing collisions between the equipment, ensuring public safety, and also how to recover the drones in case of an accident. One of my roles will be to discover the appropriate type of sensor fusion that can offer all this safety,” explained Suim.

Holding a doctorate from IME ( Military Engineering Institute), the researcher explains that the experience gained over the past two years at IMPA was fundamental in securing the position at the Norwegian university.

“My doctoral thesis was on humanoid robots. Here at IMPA I started working a lot with drones and artificial intelligence, which became a differentiating factor. One of the projects I was involved in with Professor Luiz Velho ( leader researcher of Visgraf) was the development of drone technologies for national defense actions. It's not just about military defense, but also civil defense, such as protecting the Amazon, mapping and inspections, for example. So, when you go through IMPA you already become different,” says Suim, who embarks on the new challenge in January.

"It's a different culture, a different language, a different lifestyle, but the science doesn't change, it's the same, and that brings a certain comfort," he concluded.