Dr. Hamidreza Modares is working to make future roadways safer with his research in autonomous vehicles.
Modares is an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Michigan State University. He is working to design safe control protocols for autonomous cars.
“Autonomous systems can bring unprecedented benefits to mobility and transportation, and yet without guaranteeing their safety and intended functionality, a major barrier to widespread implementation exists,” Modares said.
His research combines tools from machine learning, computer science and control theory to design trustworthy and safe autonomous vehicles.
“Next-generation highways cars will be a mixture of autonomous cars and human-driven cars and designing control protocols that learn the intention of human-driven cars and communicate with other autonomous cars to make safe decisions is very challenging,” Modares said.
Modares’s research focuses on solving these issues. He has presented reinforcement-learning based autonomous control systems which can expand the range of unforeseen tasks that can be performed in a safe fashion. This increases the safety of autonomous vehicle operation.
This safe control design has applications in other technologies, including unmanned vehicles, surveillance and monitoring, self-driving cars and robotics. Modares is one of many MSU faculty members working on the future of autonomous vehicles.
“MSU has diverse faculty from electrical engineering, to mechanical engineering, computer science and civil engineering, that can help resolve challenging of mobility filed together,” Modares said.