Indiana University Bloomington
Welcome to my personal website!
I am a Ph.D. candidate in the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering at Indiana University Bloomington, under the supervision of Prof. Lantao Liu, the head of the Vehicle Autonomy and Intelligence Lab.
Broadly speaking, my research focuses on the theory of path integral control, specifically the Model Predictive Path Integral (MPPI) Control framework. I explore various applications, including Autonomous Navigation and Visual Servoing, employing different autonomous platforms such as aerial, ground, and manipulator robots. Currently, my main emphasis is on enhancing the performance of MPPI to facilitate safe and efficient navigation in complex and unknown cluttered environments.
Before joining VAIL, I worked as a Research Assistant at ACENTAURI, INRIA Sophia Antipolis–Méditerranée. In this role, my main responsibilities included dealing with the autonomous navigation of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in a forest environment without prior mapping. Additionally, I hold two master's degrees: one in robotics engineering from the European Master on Advanced RObotics+ (EMARO+) in 2017, and the second in Control Engineering from Cairo University, Egypt, in 2014.
Latest News & Events
[November 2023]: We released the source code of our article "GP-guided MPPI for Efficient Navigation in Complex Unknown Cluttered Environments".
[November 2023]: Our CODE19-Luddy AI racing team secured 4th place out of 18 in the first phase of the Indy Autonomous Challenge (IAC) SIM Races.
[CODE19] | [CODE19-Luddy AI] | [IAC - SIM]
[November 2023]: I successfully passed the Doctoral qualification exam 🎉🥳 at Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering, Indiana University Bloomington.
[October 2023]: I attended the International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) in Detroit, USA.
[September 2023] - [Present]: I am currently leading the control (local planner) sub-team within the CODE19-Luddy AI team to compete in autonomous racing competitions.
[June 2023] - [Present]: I am currently serving as a Review Editor for Robotic Control Systems, Frontiers in Robotics and AI.
Team Activities & Hobbies
In addition to my scientific pursuits, I enjoy singing, acting, and playing ping-pong 😉 👇