2025 PhD Open Days attended by 16 IPFN students
The 11th edition of PhD Open Days, held on 27 and 28 October at Técnico Innovation Centre (TIC), gathered more than a hundred PhD students to present their posters and research. IPFN was represented by 16 PhD students, who presented their work in the fields of plasma physics, fusion technology and advanced materials.
Through round tables and debate sessions, the institute’s presence extended beyond the poster exhibition. Bruno Gonçalves, President of IPFN, moderated the debate “Clean Energies and Sustainability,” while Prof. Luís O. Silva, leader of GoLP/IPFN, chaired the round table “Fundamental Science vs Applied Science: Is This a Real Issue?”.
Among the posters presented, IPFN PhD student Gonçalo Botelho Teixeira was distinguished with the Best Scientific Poster Award for his work titled “Cooperative and Smart Ex-Vessel Transportation in Nuclear Facilities.” The project was developed under the supervision of Prof. Alberto Vale, IPFN researcher, and Bruno Gonçalves.
The poster presents a framework for cooperative and adaptive load transportation using fleets of autonomous trolleys designed for nuclear fusion environments such as EU DEMO. It focuses on the development of optimisation and learning-based algorithms that determine the optimal positioning of multiple robots to ensure safe and stable handling of heavy and potentially activated loads.
This research aims to integrate multi-objective optimisation, deep learning, and physics-informed models into a unified system for reliable autonomous transportation under confined and safety-critical conditions. Adaptive load transportation is one of the three core pillars of GT's broader PhD research, alongside optimal fleet assembly and cooperative transportation. This development can be extended to the transportation of large-scale loads beyond the confined environments of nuclear power plant galleries, finding applications in heavy industrial settings as well.
IPFN PhD students represented at TIC: Ankur Nath; André Sampaio; Bernardo Barbosa; Bhushan Thakur; Carlo Alfisi; Diogo Pereira; Gonçalo Teixeira; Gonçalo Vaz; Joaquim Nogueira; Mário Vaz; Óscar Amaro; Rafael Almeida; Robert Neumann; Róbert Badjak; Zahra Mohammadzade.