Joao P. A. Dantas

• July 2023 Honored to serve as an instructor at the Brazilian Army’s esteemed VI Curso de Extensão em Iniciação de Simulação de Combate e Blindados discussing "Constructive Simulation in Scenario Analysis and Aerospace Technology Development".
• June 2023 Thrilled to announce that I received the Best PhD Colloquium Paper award at the prestigious ACM SIGSIM PADS 2023, part of FCRC 2023 Federated Computing Research Conference.
• April 2023 Honored to be selected for participation in the Brazil at Silicon Valley 2023 conference in Santa Clara, CA.
• January 2023 Proudly completed my Ph.D. Exchange Program at the esteemed Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University.
• December 2022 Presented a groundbreaking paper at the Winter Simulation Conference (WSC) 2022. Also attended an insightful course on Missile Design and System Engineering taught by Prof. Eugene Fleeman at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
• November 2022 Participated in the influential Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference (I/ITSEC) 2022.
• July 2022 Had the honor of presenting my paper at the World Congress in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, & Applied Computing (CSCE) 2022. Also deeply honored to be one of the 30 recipients out of 33,876 applicants of the Fundacão Estudar Merit Scholarship for exceptional academic potential and trajectory.
• June 2022 Presented the project “Close-Proximity Safe and Seamless Operation of Manned and Unmanned Aircraft in Shared Airspace” to the U.S. Army Futures Command at the Technology Terrain Walk.
• May 2022 Excited to have an article published in IEEE Latin America Transactions. Also participated in the International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 2020 and presented a workshop paper at the Aerial Robotics Workshop.
• April 2022 My workshop paper was accepted at the Aerial Robotics Workshop during ICRA 2022. Demonstrated a project at the Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous Systems Symposium & Exposition 2022, an event hosted by the Association of the United States Army (AUSA).
• January 2022 Proud to announce the founding of the Brazilian Armed Forces Research Association (BAFRA), an organization dedicated to integrating scientists abroad focused on the technological development of the Brazilian defense ecosystem.
• December 2021 Presented my paper at the 10th Brazilian Conference on Intelligent Systems (BRACIS).
• November 2021 Started my Ph.D. Exchange Program at the Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University.
• October 2021 Presented a paper at the 18th Latin American Robotics Symposium (LARS).

Journals

Machine Learning to Improve Situational Awareness in Beyond Visual Range Air Combat Joao P. A. Dantas, Andre N. Costa, Diego Geraldo, Marcos R. O. A. Maximo, Takashi Yoneyama IEEE Latin America Transactions, 2022 [Link] [PDF] [Video] [Code]

Formation control method based on artificial potential fields for aircraft flight simulation Andre N. Costa, Felipe L. L. Medeiros, Joao P. A. Dantas, Diego Geraldo, Nei Y. Soma SIMULATION SAGE, 2021 [Link] [PDF]

Peer-reviewed Conferences

Learned Tree Search for Long-Horizon Social Robot Navigation in Shared Airspace [submitted] Ingrid Navarro, Jay Patrikar, Joao P. A. Dantas, Rohan Baijal, Ian Higgins, Sebastian Scherer, Jean Oh International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2023 [PDF] [Video] [Code]

Autonomous Agent for Beyond Visual Range Air Combat: A Deep Reinforcement Learning Approach Joao P. A. Dantas, Marcos R. O. A. Maximo, Takashi Yoneyama SIGSIM PADS (Principles of Advanced Discrete Simulation), 2023 [PDF] [Presentation] [Poster]

ASA: A Simulation Environment for Evaluating Military Operational Scenarios Joao P. A. Dantas, Andre N. Costa, Vitor C. F. Gomes, Andre R. Kuroswiski, Felipe L. L. Medeiros, Diego Geraldo World Congress in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, & Applied Computing (CSCE), 2022 [PDF] [Presentation] [Video I] [Video II]

Supervised Machine Learning for Effective Missile Launch Based on Beyond Visual Range Air Combat Simulations Joao P. A. Dantas, Andre N. Costa, Felipe L. L. Medeiros, Diego Geraldo, Marcos R. O. A. Maximo, Takashi Yoneyama Winter Simulation Conference (WSC), 2022 [Link] [PDF] [Presentation] [Code]

Weapon Engagement Zone Maximum Launch Range Estimation Using a Deep Neural Network Joao P. A. Dantas, Andre N. Costa, Diego Geraldo, Marcos R. O. A. Maximo, Takashi Yoneyama Brazilian Conference on Intelligent Systems (BRACIS), 2021 [Link] [PDF] [Presentation] [Video] [Code]

Engagement Decision Support for Beyond Visual Range Air Combat Joao P. A. Dantas, Andre N. Costa, Diego Geraldo, Marcos R. O. A. Maximo, Takashi Yoneyama Latin American Robotics Symposium (LARS), 2021 [Link] [PDF] [Presentation] [Video] [Code]

Enhanced Self-Organizing Map Solution for the Traveling Salesman Problem Joao P. A. Dantas, Andre N. Costa, Marcos R. O. A. Maximo, Takashi Yoneyama National Meeting on Artificial and Computational Intelligence (ENIAC), 2021 [Link] [PDF] [Presentation] [Code]

Simulation study applied to air logistics in the Amazon region Joao P. A. Dantas, Caio A. M. Silvestre, Daniel A. Pamplona, Anibal T. Azevedo III Regional Meeting of Operations Research of the Southeast (ERPO), 2018 [Link] [PDF]

Exploratory Data Analysis of Brazilian Aeronautical Accidents Joao P. A. Dantas, Jelton A. Cunha, Jamesson L. Silva, Alessandro O. Arantes, Vitor C. F. Gomes Flight Safety Symposium (SSV), 2018 [Link] [PDF]

Magazines

Simulation model applied to transport missions in the Amazon region Joao P. A. Dantas, Caio A. M. Silvestre Spectrum: Operational Applications in Defense Areas, 2020 [Link] [PDF]

Game theory applied to beyond visual range air combat Joao P. A. Dantas Spectrum: Operational Applications in Defense Areas, 2017 [PDF]

Workshops

Challenges in Close-Proximity Safe and Seamless Operation of Manned and Unmanned Aircraft in Shared Airspace Jay Patrikar, Joao P. A. Dantas, Sourish Ghosh, Parv Kapoor, Ian Higgins, Jasmine J. Aloor, Ingrid Navarro, Jimin Sun, Ben Stoler, Milad Hamidi, Rohan Baijal, Brady Moon, Jean Oh, Sebastian Scherer International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2022 [Link] [PDF] [Presentation] [Video]

Master's Thesis

Decision support for beyond visual range air combat: an artificial neural network approach Joao P. A. Dantas, Takashi Yoneyama Master's Thesis at Aeronautics Institute of Technology, Electronic and Computer Engineering Division, 2018 [PDF]

Undergraduate Research

Hexacopter for civil construction monitoring: assembly, testing and operation Joao P. A. Dantas, Davi Antonio dos Santos Senior Thesis at Aeronautics Institute of Technology, Mechanical-Aeronautical Engineering Division, 2015 [PDF]

Automatic data acquisition in tests of thermal barrier materials carried out in a supersonic plasma tunnel Joao P. A. Dantas, Gilberto P. Filho ITA Scientific Initiation and Postgraduate Meeting (ENCITA), 2013 [PDF] [Presentation]

Study of a low pressure thermionic cathode discharge Joao P. A. Dantas, Gilberto P. Filho ITA Scientific Initiation and Postgraduate Meeting (ENCITA), 2012 [PDF] [Presentation]

• 2022: Fundacão Estudar Merit Scholarship for outstanding trajectory and academic potential (30 recipients out of 33,876 applicants).
• 2021: 3rd place in the 5th Brazilian Competition on Knowledge Discovery in Databases (KDD-BR).
• 2021: Military Bronze Medal received from the Brazilian Air Force.
• 2020: Distinguished Fellowship Award for making significant contributions to the Fellows Community, Institute Four.
• 2019: 6th place out of 39 competitors in the 3rd Brazilian Competition on Knowledge Discovery in Databases (KDD-BR).
• 2019: Ambassador Award of Excellence, International Youth Math Challenge.
• 2019: 4th place in the Data Science Challenge at Engineering Education for the Future (EEF).
• 2016: Selected by Instituto Four to participate in the Prolider Program (29 recipients out of 2,013 applicants).
• 2015: Honorable Mention in the Department of Humanities, Aeronautics Institute of Technology.
• 2014-2015: Full scholarship from Brazil's Ministry of Education for a one-year study program at Stony Brook University, College of Engineering (~$75,000).
• 2014: Military Merit Award from the Brazilian Air Force (25% best military behavior grades among the Officer Candidates).
• 2011-2013: Fellowship of Scientific Initiation Scholarship Program for 24 months, National Council for Scientific and Technological Development.
• 2011: 1st place overall out of 120 Officer Candidates, Brazilian Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps (CPORAER-SJ).
• 2010: Approved in the Aeronautics Institute of Technology entrance exam, 120 recipients out of 7627 applicants.
• 2009: Academic Merit Award from the Brazilian Air Force (25% best military grades among the Cadets).
• 2007: Bronze Medal, 10th Brazilian Olympiad of Astronomy and Astronautics (OBA) (187,726 competitors).
• 2006: Honorable Mention in the XIV Ceara Science and Biology Olympiad, a competition managed by the Federal University of Ceara, Brazil.
• 2006: Gold Medal in the Internal Science Olympiads in the disciplines of Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Biology, Farias Brito High School, Brazil.
• 2004-2006: Full scholarship for three years at Farias Brito High School, Brazil (~$30,000).
• 2003: Honor to Merit for 2nd place three times and 5th place one time in the Internal Mathematics Olympiad, Christus Middle School.
• 2003: 2nd place in the 3rd Christus Exhibition of Science and Technology (EXCETEC) in the area "Exact, Social and Commercial Sciences" with the project "Educational Exodus Study", Christus Middle School, Brazil.