Welcome to my personal website

Huu Thien Nguyen

Huu Thien Nguyen
(in Vietnamese: Nguyễn Hữu Thiện)

I am currently a researcher at Research Unit SYSTEC-ISR-ARISE, hosted at Faculty of Engineering,
University of Porto (FEUP), and at Institute for Systems and Robotics (ISR), Porto, Portugal, working under the supervision of Assoc. Prof. Fernando A.C.C. Fontes.

Emails:
huu-thien.nguyen@ieee.org (work),
huu-thien.nguyen@outlook.com (professional),
Old email: nguyen@fe.up.pt (I do not have access to this email anymore).

EDUCATION


• Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Porto, Portugal (October 2020-March 2025, funded by FCT).
Supervisors: Assoc. Prof. Fernando A.C.C. Fontes (2022-2025), Prof. Fernando Lobo Pereira (2020-2022), and Assoc. Prof. Ionela Prodan.
Ph.D. thesis: Optimization-Based Control Design for Challenging Maneuvers in Nonholonomic Vehicles. url: https://repositorio-aberto.up.pt/handle/10216/166534.

• Engineering Degree (Diplôme d'Ingénieur) in Mechatronics from the Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology, Vietnam (2014-2019), within the PFIEV program.


PUBLICATIONS (many thanks to my co-authors)


Journal articles

J2. H.T. Nguyen, I. Prodan, and F.A.C.C. Fontes. Nonlinear model predictive control trajectory tracking for a fixed-wing UAV in a deep-stall and perching landing maneuver with guaranteed stability. European Journal of Control, 88:101442, Mar. 2026. doi:10.1016/j.ejcon.2025.101442.

J1. H.T. Nguyen, N.T. Nguyen, and I. Prodan. Notes on the terminal region enlargement of a stabilizing NMPC design for a multicopter. Automatica, 159:111375, Jan. 2024. doi:10.1016/j.automatica.2023.111375.

Conference papers

C5. S. Vinha, G.M. Fernandes, M.C.R.M. Fernandes, H.T. Nguyen, and F.A.C.C. Fontes. Control of Fixed-Wing Tethered Aircraft in Circular Take-off and Landing Maneuvers. In Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics - Volume 2: ICINCO, pages 319–326, Porto, Portugal, 2024. SciTePress. doi:10.5220/0013067000003822.

C4. H.T. Nguyen, M.C.R.M. Fernandes, I. Prodan, and F.A.C.C. Fontes. Trajectory Optimization for a Four In-wheel Motor Vehicle in Double Lane Change Maneuver. In CONTROLO 2024, pages 625-637, Cham, 2025. Springer Nature Switzerland. doi:10.1007/978-3-031-81724-3_56.

C3. S. Vinha, G.M. Fernandes, H.T. Nguyen, M.C.R.M. Fernandes, and F.A.C.C. Fontes. Automatic Circular Take-off and Landing of Tethered Motorized Aircraft. In 2024 European Control Conference (ECC), Stockholm, Sweden, pages 681–686, June 2024. doi:10.23919/ECC64448.2024.10590893.

C2. H.T. Nguyen, I. Prodan, and F.A.C.C. Fontes. Trajectory Optimization and NMPC Tracking for a Fixed-Wing UAV in Deep Stall with Perch Landing. In 2023 European Control Conference (ECC), Bucharest, Romania, pages 1–7, June 2023. doi:10.23919/ECC57647.2023.10178188.
Simulation video: https://youtu.be/xW4auKi4B7c.
Extended verison with more simulation results: https://arxiv.org/abs/2204.11504v2.

C1. H.T. Nguyen, N.T. Nguyen, I. Prodan, and F.L. Pereira. Trajectory Tracking for a Multicopter under a Quaternion Representation. IFAC-PapersOnLine, 53(2):5731–5736, 2020. doi:10.1016/j.ifacol.2020.12.1602.
In 21st IFAC World Congress, Berlin, Germany (virtual), July 11-17, 2020.

Conference abstracts

ABS2. H.T. Nguyen, S. Vinha, M.C.R.M. Fernandes, A. Ahmed, L.T. Paiva, A.A. Uppal, and F.A.C.C. Fontes. An Optimal Control and Reinforcement Learning Approach with Multi-Fidelity Simulation Models for Motion Control of Four in-Wheel Motor Vehicles. Abstract and poster presented at the IEEE CDC 2023 Autonomous Driving Control Benchmark Challenge, Singapore, Dec. 2023.

ABS1. H.T. Nguyen, S. Vinha, M.C.R.M. Fernandes, Paiva, L. T., I. Prodan, and F.A.C.C. Fontes. Emergency Landing using Deep-stall for Airborne Wind Energy System with Fixed-Wing Kites. Abstract from the 2023 Wind Energy Science Conference (WESC), Glasgow, United Kingdom, May 2023.
Presentation file with the abstract: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8056073.

Preprint

P2. H.T. Nguyen, I. Prodan, and F.A.C.C. Fontes. Hierarchical Control for Hybrid Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, 2026. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=6137518.

P1. H.T. Nguyen, F.A.C.C. Fontes, and I. Prodan. A Stabilizing NMPC Strategy for a Class of Nonholonomic Systems with Drift, 2024. https://arxiv.org/pdf/2403.04748.pdf.


RESEARCH VISITS


V3. Nov. 2023: LCIS, Grenoble INP, Université Grenoble Alpes, Valence, France (under the project PESSOA).
V2. Nov. 2022: LCIS, Grenoble INP, Université Grenoble Alpes, Valence, France (under the project PESSOA).
V1. Sep. 2021 - Oct. 2021: LCIS, Grenoble INP, Université Grenoble Alpes, Valence, France (Assoc. Prof. Ionela Prodan).


GRANTS


• FCT Grant 2020.07959.BD. Motion Planning and Control for Variable-Geometry UAV Operation in a Cluttered Environment.
• France-Portugal bilateral program PESSOA (ref. 2021.09306.CBM).
• Project UPWind-ATOL : An Airborne Wind Energy System with Automatic Takeoff and Landing capabilities (ref. 2022.02801.PTDC).
• SYSTEC - Research Center for Systems and Technologies (Base UIDB/00147/2020 and Programmatic UIDP/00147/2020) funds.
• ARISE - Associate Laboratory Advanced Production and Intelligent Systems (LA/P/0112/2020).
• The French National Research Agency in the framework of the «Investissements d'avenir» program «ANR-15-IDEX-02» and the LabEx PERSYVAL «ANR-11-LABX-0025-01».


Thank you for your time.
Last updated: 17-02-2026.