Research projects I lead or have contributed to, and a selection of my publications. Lines connect each project to its papers; hover over either side to follow them. The complete list of publications is on my Google Scholar.

Projects

Earth observation and environment

GENESIS

Co-PI · USDA-NIFA-AFRI, $900,000, starting January 2027

DSFAS-CIN: GeoAI-Enabled Next-Generation Environmental and Seed Intelligence Platform. A platform that combines geospatial AI, remote sensing, and seed science. I led the writing of the proposal.

ForestTrace

Lead developer · Remote Sensing Laboratory, Saint Louis University

Forest disturbance-to-recovery monitoring platform built on fine-tuned geospatial foundation models and multi-sensor data, applied in Ontario boreal forests and California mixed-conifer forests. A beta release is available through the Remote Sensing Laboratory.

Geospatial Time Machine

Lead researcher · Saint Louis University

Graph neural network-based generative model that enhances the spectral and temporal resolution of satellite data, filling gaps in satellite image time series.

PlantPlotGAN

Lead researcher · Saint Louis University

Physics-informed generative adversarial network for early plant disease detection. I built the full data cleaning and machine learning pipeline, and the GAN-based method improved classification accuracy to about 80%.

Code on GitHub

Integrated Water Management Tool (IWMT)

Consultant · International Center for Biosaline Agriculture (ICBA)

Added multi-language support and machine learning models to ICBA's Integrated Water Management Tool.

Data and IoT at LEAD

PC2I: Smart Irrigation Platform

Coordinator · Laboratory of Data Engineering and Analysis (LEAD), IFAL

Low-cost cyber-physical platform for smart irrigation, using IoT sensors and machine learning models. LEAD released its first version in 2021.

LEAD website

Open Data Monitoring

Advisor · Laboratory of Data Engineering and Analysis (LEAD), IFAL

Student project analyzing public administration data for the city of Arapiraca. Outstanding Advisor Award, FEBRACE 2023.

LEAD website

Software-defined networking

Models at Runtime for SDN

Ph.D. research · Federal University of Pernambuco and Karlsruhe Institute of Technology

Q-learning applied to runtime models for autonomous SDN policy adaptation. At KIT, I built Petri net and Markov chain models of network behavior and implemented them within SDN frameworks for experimental evaluation.

Model-Driven Networking (MDN) on GitHub

DDoS Detection in SDN and P4 Networks

Researcher · P4Sec project, Federal University of Pernambuco

Machine learning models in Python and PyTorch that detect and mitigate DDoS attacks in software-defined and P4-based networks in real time. P4Sec is a collaboration between UFPE, UFRGS, UnB, UC San Diego, CAIDA, and Texas A&M University.

SDN-DDoS-Monitor on GitHub

Selected publications

  1. A Novel Approach to Estimate Total Carbon Accounting for Below and Above-Ground Carbon Content of Industrial Hemp with UAV LiDAR and Hyperspectral Data Fusion A. Pawar, V. Sagan, H. Alifu, K. Tamang, G. Bagnall, C. Gul, N. Shrestha, F. A. Lopes Smart Agricultural Technology, 2026 [link]
  2. Geospatial Time Machine: A Generative Model to Enhance Spectral–Temporal Data Resolution F. A. Lopes, V. Sagan, S. Sarkar, A. Stylianou, F. Esposito IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, 63, 1–13, 2025 [link]
  3. Self-Supervised Learning for Soybean Disease Detection Using UAV Hyperspectral Imagery M. Rahaman, V. Sagan, F. A. Lopes, H. Alifu, C. Gul, H. Aliakbarpour, et al. Remote Sensing, 17(23), 3928, 2025 [link]
  4. SoilSR: A Soil-Oriented Super-Resolution Method to Enhance Satellite-Based SOC Analysis F. A. Lopes, V. Sagan, A. Pawar, H. Alifu Optical Sensors, 2025 [link]
  5. Bridging the Gap Between Crop Breeding and GeoAI: Soybean Yield Prediction from Multispectral UAV Images with Transfer Learning J. Skobalski, V. Sagan, H. Alifu, O. Al Akkad, F. A. Lopes, F. Grignola ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, 210, 260–281, 2024 [link]
  6. PlantPlotGAN: A Physics-Informed Generative Adversarial Network for Plant Disease Prediction F. A. Lopes, V. Sagan, F. Esposito IEEE/CVF Winter Conference on Applications of Computer Vision (WACV), 2024 [link] [code]
  7. Model-Based Flow Delegation for Improving SDN Infrastructure Compatibility F. A. Lopes, P. Tiburcio, R. Bauer, S. Fernandes, M. Zitterbart IEEE/IFIP Network Operations and Management Symposium (NOMS), 2018 [link]
  8. A Software Engineering Perspective on SDN Programmability F. A. Lopes, M. Santos, R. Fidalgo, S. Fernandes IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, 18(2), 1255–1272, 2016 [link]
  9. High-Level Modeling and Application Validation for SDN F. A. Lopes, L. Lima Jr., M. Santos, R. Fidalgo, S. Fernandes IEEE/IFIP Network Operations and Management Symposium (NOMS), 2016 [link]
  10. Model-Driven Networking: A Novel Approach for SDN Applications Development F. A. Lopes, M. Santos, R. Fidalgo, S. Fernandes IEEE/IFIP International Symposium on Integrated Network Management, 2015 [link] [code]
  11. How Software Aging Affects SDN: A View on the Controllers F. A. Lopes, M. Santos, M. Santana, S. Fernandes Global Information Infrastructure and Networking Symposium (GIIS), 2014 [link]