Publication date
4 may 2026
Researchers from TEMA – Centre for Mechanical Technology and Automation of the University of Aveiro (Rodrigo Bernardo and Marco Santos), in collaboration with researchers from CIDMA (Delfim Torres and Carlos Herdeiro), have developed a method for controlling servo-hydraulic systems inspired by physical principles that explain the dynamics of black holes, namely gravitational potential and accretion.
The relationship between the astrophysical system and the servo-hydraulic system is established through an analogy in which the state of the servo-hydraulic system is represented by the position of a body attracted by a black hole. The control error is defined as the distance between this body and the centre of the black hole, while the control signal is defined as the combined effect of gravitational potential and accretion. The desired state of the servo-hydraulic system is thus considered to correspond to the centre of the black hole.
This study, published in the journal Results in Engineering, demonstrated that dynamics observed in black holes can be effectively used to control electromechanical systems, achieving performance levels superior to several existing nonlinear control methods.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rineng.2026.110367
The method was also recently applied to alpha-particle-emitting radiopharmaceutical therapies, leading to a significant reduction in the administered amount of radiopharmaceuticals compared to currently used clinical methods. This study was carried out by researchers from TEMA (Marco Santos, Rodrigo Bernardo and Gil Gonçalves), in collaboration with researchers from the Coimbra Institute for Clinical and Biomedical Research (Inês Marques and Filomena Botelho).
https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6560/ae5017
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