Reza Azimi

Ph.D.

I am currently working at Ford Motor Company as a Research Scientist on the Autonomous Driving project as a part of Ford's Research and Innovation Center.

I have a PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), 2015. I obtained my M.S degree from ECE department of CMU, 2011, and my Bachelor’s degree is in Communication Systems (System de communication) from École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland, 2009.

I have years of research and system engineering experience in wireless communications, specializing in safety applications using vehicular networks and DSRC. Intensive experience in both simulation and emulation of cyber-physical systems, distributed systems, sensor networks, vehicle communications and strong programming skills. Exceptional interpersonal, leadership and communication skills with a dedication to promoting effective teamwork.

Resume

Education

  • August 2009 - May 2015

    CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY

    Doctor of philosophy

    Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Thesis Statement: A fusion of vehicular networks and vehicle-resident sensing enables co-operative driving among autonomous and manual vehicles, leading to safety and high throughput at intersections.

  • August 2009 - May 2011

    CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY

    Master of Science

    Electrical and Computer Engineering
    ABD

  • August 2004 - May 2008

    ÉCOLE POLYTECHNIQUE FÉDÉRALE DE LAUSANNE

    Bachelor of Science

    Communication Systems
    ABD

Professional Experience

  • August 2009 - Present

    Carnegie Mellon University

    Real Time and Multimedia-Systems Lab (RTML)

    Research Assistant

    Designed and developed new vehicular networks protocols using Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) communications to enable co-operative driving in the context of autonomous vehicles.

    Designed and developed methods to enable the safe co-existence of manual and autonomous vehicles at intersections.

    Designed and developed the hybrid emulator-simulator for vehicular networks, called AutoSim

  • August 2009 - Present

    General Motors Company-Carnegie Mellon University
    GM-CMU

    Autonomous Driving Collaborative Research Lab (AD-CRL)

    Vehicle Information Technology Collaborative Research Lab (VIT-CRL)

    Researcher

    Designed and developed active safety applications using vehicular communications (V2X)

    Prototyped and implemented the proposed protocols on CMU-GM autonomous vehicle

  • Summer 2014

    Qualcomm Inc.

    Interim Intern

    Systems Group, Manager: Peerapol, Tinnakornsrisuphap

    Performance Improvement of Video Telephony over WLAN

  • Summer 2013

    Qualcomm Inc.

    Interim Intern

    System Integration Group, Manager: Michael Dimare, Mentor: Vito Salluce

    System performance evaluation of LTE-D: Designing test cases, deployment, evaluation and analysis

    802.11 n/p: Throughput evaluation of Wi-Fi/DSRC on Kingfisher

Teaching Experience

  • Fall 2014

    Carnegie Mellon University

    Teaching Assistant

    “Real-Time Embedded Systems”

    Graduate Level

    ABD

  • Spring 2012 and Spring 2014

    Carnegie Mellon University

    Teaching Assistant

    “Wireless Sensor Networks”

    Graduate Level

    ABD

  • Spring 2008

    ÉCOLE POLYTECHNIQUE FÉDÉRALE DE LAUSANNE

    Teaching Assistant

    “Geometry Analytic”

    Undergraduate Level

    ABD

  • Fall 2007 and Spring 2008

    ÉCOLE POLYTECHNIQUE FÉDÉRALE DE LAUSANNE

    Teaching Assistant

    “Analysis II”

    undergraduate Level

    ABD

Computer Skills

  • Languages

    C++, C, Java, Perl, Shell, Python

    Hardware

    VHDL, CAN bus

    Software

    MATLAB, Opnet, AutoSim, GrooveNet

    Operating Systems

    Linux, MS Windows and UNIX environments

    Others

    MS Excel, MS Word, MS PowerPoint

Professional Activity

  • Reviewer for

    International Workshop on Cyber Security and Privacy (CSP), 2012-2014

    IEEE Conference on Control, Systems & Industrial Informatics (ICCSII), 2012-2014

    IEEE Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSC), 2011-2014

Leadership

  • President of PSO (Persian Student Organization, CMU), (2012-2014)

    Communication officer of PSO (Persian Students Organization), CMU, (2009-2010)

    Director of communications of IRSA (Iranian Students Association), EPFL, (2007-2008)

Selected Honors

  • Doctorate Research Fellowship, Carnegie Mellon University, 2009 – 2015

    Doctorate Research Scholarships through NSF and GM, 2009-2015

    Top student exchange-student scholarship, EPFL

    to fulfill the last year of Bachelor of Science at Carnegie Mellon University

    Award of merit for introducing autonomous driving research to Portuguese national TV, CMU

Reference

  • Professor Raj Rajkumar

    George Westinghouse Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University.

    Email: raj@ece.cmu.edu

Research

V2V Intersection Protocols

Designed a family of distributed intersection management protocols, STIP (Spatio-Temporal Intersection Protocols), to provide safe and efficient traverse of vehicles through road intersections and roundabouts. STIP incorporate vehicular networks to enable co-operative driving of manual and autonomous vehicles. We analyze potential deadlock and starvation conditions which can affect our distributed cyber-physical system. We present a mathematical proof for the deadlock-freedom and liveliness of our proposed system.

V2V Intersection Protocols

To incorporate DSRC/WAVE in the STIP framework, we implement realistic communication models. Additionally, we study the impact of imperfect communication on our V2V-intersection protocols and leverage the use of realistic DSRC channel propagation models such as the Nakagami-m model. Additionally, we analyze the communication reliability of our proposed active safety applications.

V2V Intersection Protocols

Localization and positioning accuracy play an important role in safety applications. We study the effects of position inaccuracy on our STIP framework by implementing realistic GPS models. We design and implement a method to deal with position inaccuracies to guarantee the safety of our intersection protocols.

V2V Intersection Protocols

We design a new synchronization-based method to manage the synchronous and continuous arrival and passage of vehicles at intersection. We analyze the benefits of this scheme in maximizing the usage of intersection capacity. This method can be also beneficial for a wide range of non-vehicular applications.

V2V Intersection Protocols

We design and implement new protocols for managing the mixed traffic of human-driven and autonomous vehicles through intersections. Leveraging V2V, V2I and on-board sensor systems, we design communication-based and perception-based protocols which enable the safe co-existence of manually-driven and autonomous vehicles. These methods are evaluated to demonstrate the improvements obtained in safety and throughput at intersections.

V2V Intersection Protocols

To evaluate our Spatio-temporal Intersection Protocols (STIP), we use our model-based emulator-simulator, AutoSim. This simulator is the next generation of GrooveNet. This tool is used to implement and evaluate our STIP framework. AutoSim provides a hybrid emulation and simulation environment for vehicular communications. The communication interfaces for DSRC communication as well as on-board sensory interfaces is implemented to enable real cars instrumented with DSRC to react in real-time with simulated vehicles. We also support modeling of different aspects of mobility protocols. The architecture consists of several models such as the Control, Communication, Mobility, Localization and Path Tracking. AutoSim also support modeling of Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) and Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) communications.
Our STIP methods are being implemented on the autonomous vehicle platform.

Patent

  • P. Mudalige, R. Rajkumar, R. Azimi, G. Bhatia, “Efficient Intersection Autonomous Driving Protocol”
    patent publication date: Nov 14, 2013. Publication numbers: US20130304279 A1, CN103390354A, link
  • Conference Papers

  • R.Azimi, G. Bhatia, R. Rajkumar, P. Mudalige “STIP: Spatio-Temporal Intersection Protocols for Autonomous Vehicles”
    ACM/IEEE 5th International Conference on Cyber-Physical Systems (ICCPS), 2014.
    IEEE Link, pdf

  • R.Azimi, G. Bhatia, R. Rajkumar, P. Mudalige “Reliable Intersection Protocols using Vehicular Networks”
    ACM/IEEE 4th International Conference on Cyber-Physical Systems (ICCPS), 2013.
    ACM Link, IEEE Link, pdf

  • R.Azimi, G. Bhatia, R. Rajkumar, P. Mudalige “Impact of Position Inaccuracy on V2V Intersection Protocols”
    ACM/IEEE 4th International Conference on Cyber-Physical Systems (ICCPS-WiP), 2013.
    ACM Link, IEEE Link, pdf

  • R.Azimi, G. Bhatia, R. Rajkumar, P. Mudalige “V2V Intersection Management at Roundabouts”
    Society for Automotive Engineers (SAE) World Congress,April 2013, Detroit, MI, USA. pdf

  • R.Azimi, G. Bhatia, R. Rajkumar, P. Mudalige “Intersection Management using Vehicular Networks”
    Society for Automotive Engineers (SAE) World Congress,April 2012, Detroit, MI, USA. pdf

  • R.Azimi, G. Bhatia, R. Rajkumar, P. Mudalige "Vehicular Networks for Collision Avoidance at Intersections"
    Society for Automotive Engineers (SAE) World Congress,April,2011, Detroit, MI, USA. pdf

  • Journal Papers

  • R.Azimi, G. Bhatia, R. Rajkumar, P. Mudalige “V2V Intersection Management at Roundabouts”
    SAE International Journal of Passenger Cars- Mechanical Systems July 2013 vol. 6 no. 2 681-690.link

  • R.Azimi, G. Bhatia, R. Rajkumar, P. Mudalige "Vehicular Networks for Collision Avoidance at Intersections"
    SAE International Journal of Passenger Cars- Mechanical Systems June 2011 vol. 4 no. 1 406-416. link
  • Email: rezaazimi@cmu.edu, sazimi@ford.com