I am Yongqi Dong 董永奇, a Ph.D. researcher at TU Delft, and a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley. I am a member of the Traffic and Transportation Safety Lab supervised by Dr. Haneen Farah and Prof. Bart van Arem. My Ph.D. project is Expanding the Operational Design Domain of Automated Vehicles in Mixed Traffic with Artificial Intelligence. It is within the Safe and efficient operation of AutoMated and human drivEN vehicles in mixed traffic (SAMEN) project, funded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO). From May 2023 to October 2023, I visited the Mechanical Systems Control Lab at UC Berkeley, supervised by Prof. Masayoshi Tomizuka. There, I cooperated with Dr. Chen Tang on topics related to socially compliant automated driving.

I obtained my Master’s degree in Control Science and Engineering from Tsinghua University and my Bachelor’s degree in Telecommunication Engineering from Beijing Jiaotong University (BJTU). I had also spent time at Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) as a research intern.

My current research centres around the areas of Automated Vehicles, Smart & Shared Mobility, and Artificial Intelligence. I aim to develop innovative Deep Learning models for Automated Vehicles’ sensing and Deep Reinforcement Learning models for Automated Vehicles’ controlling, and thus realize Safe, Efficient, and Socially Compliant Autonomous Driving. I have also delved into shared mobility employing big data analytics and machine learning techniques to reveal the unique spatial-temporal patterns. My previous works have been published in high-quality top journals and conferences, including Transportation Research Part C, IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, and Computer-Aided Civil and Infrastructure Engineering, as well as IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSC), IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (SMC), and Transportation Research Board annual meeting (TRB).

For more information, please refer to my CV.
Feel free to contact me for research discussion and possible collaboration!

News

• 03/2024: My 2024 IEEE ITSS New Initiatives Proposal on “Promoting interdisciplinary research towards the deployment of automated vehicles in mixed traffic” has been approved! This initiative will foster interdisciplinary research and build a vibrant community focused on advancing automated mobility in the mixed-traffic environment. If you are in the relevant research/working domain, feel free to join our online group at https://groups.google.com/g/emerging-mixed-traffic. In line with this, we will propose a follow-up ITSC workshop, expanding on the groundwork laid by last year’s iteration, accessible at https://sites.google.com/view/itsc2023-mixed-traffic. Let’s drive innovation together!
• 12/2023: On December 18, I attended the 2023 International Forum of Young Scientists (Scholars) - Sub-Forum for Sci&Tech Driven Business Interdisciplinary Research at East China Normal University, and gave a talk titled Grand Unified Internet of Everything—A Perspective from Automated Driving in Intelligent Transportation System. I shared my perspectives regarding how to enhance safe, efficient, socially compliant automated driving in mixed traffic through automation, connectivity, and artificial intelligence.
• 12/2023: I attended the 27th International Conference of Hong Kong Society for Transportation Studies. I enjoyed the keynote speech, the oral/poster presentation, and especially the opportunity to connect with top researchers around the world. I presented my research paper Social-aware Planning and Control for Automated Vehicles based on Driving Risk Field and Model Predictive Contouring Control: Driving through Roundabouts as a Case Study (Demo video) on December 12 (13:30-14:50 in Session E4: Emerging and Future Mobility-5), and promoted the relevant IEEE TAB Committee on Standards Seed Funding project R11P21 Enhancing the Deployment of Socially Compliant Automated Vehicles in Mixed Traffic. If you are around and interested in relevant research domains, feel free to drop by and have a light discussion. We are recruiting members for the dedicated research community (https://groups.google.com/g/emerging-mixed-traffic). If you have any questions please contact me by emailing Y.Dong-4@tudelft.nl.
• 11/2023: I attended the 2023 WiE-ITS & YP-ITS Fellowship Program (November 20-22, 2023), presenting my developed online Resource Repository: Datasets, Simulation Platforms, and Relevant Publications on Emerging Mixed Traffic of Automated Vehicles and Human-driven Vehicles, and having a great time networking with other fellows and invited speakers. My project will be constantly updated. If you are in a relevant research domain and want to contribute to this open repository, or want to join the dedicated research community (https://groups.google.com/g/emerging-mixed-traffic), please contact me by emailing Y.Dong-4@tudelft.nl.
• 10/2023: I attended and presented two research papers, i.e., Social-aware Planning and Control for Automated Vehicles based on Driving Risk Field and Model Predictive Contouring Control: Driving through Roundabouts as a Case Study (Demo video, and Comparative Study on Semi-supervised Learning Applied for Anomaly Detection in Hydraulic Condition Monitoring System at the 2023 IEEE Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (October 1-4, 2023) in Honolulu, Hawaii.
• 09/2023: As part of the 2023 WiE-ITS & YP-ITS Fellowship Program, I developed an online Resource Repository: Datasets, Simulation Platforms, and Relevant Publications on Emerging Mixed Traffic of Automated Vehicles and Human-driven Vehicles. It will be constantly updated. If you are in a relevant research domain and want to contribute to this open repository, please contact me by emailing Y.Dong-4@tudelft.nl.
• 08/2023: I got awarded the IEEE SMC Conference Grant. It will support my participation in the 2023 IEEE Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (October 1-4, 2023) in Honolulu, Hawaii. I will present two research papers there, i.e., Social-aware Planning and Control for Automated Vehicles based on Driving Risk Field and Model Predictive Contouring Control: Driving through Roundabouts as a Case Study (Demo video), and Comparative Study on Semi-supervised Learning Applied for Anomaly Detection in Hydraulic Condition Monitoring System.
• 08/2023: One paper, “Robust Lane Detection through Self Pre-training with Masked Sequential Autoencoders and Fine-tuning with Customized PolyLoss”, was accepted by the Journal of IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems. Preprint is available.
• 07/2023: As the (co-)first author and/or the corresponding author, I got four papers accepted by the 26th IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSC 2023). Super happy~
• 07/2023: I attended the 2023 TRB Annual Automated Road Transportation Symposium (TRB ARTS23), July 9-13 2023 in San Francisco. During the reception and poster session on July 11, I presented our work titled “Social-aware Planning and Control for Automated Vehicles Based on Driving Risk Field and Model Predictive Contouring Control: Driving through Roundabouts as a Case Study”.
• 07/2023: I attended the International Task Force on Vehicle-Highway Automation (ITFVHA) Symposium on 8 July 2023 in San Francisco and tried the Cruise Robotaxi for a 20-minute trip. It was really a fantastic experience.
• 06/2023: I got two papers accepted by the 2023 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (SMC 2023): Social-aware Planning and Control for Automated Vehicles based on Driving Risk Field and Model Predictive Contouring Control: Driving through Roundabouts as a Case Study (Demo video), and Comparative Study on Semi-supervised Learning Applied for Anomaly Detection in Hydraulic Condition Monitoring System.
• 06/2023: I attended the IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium (IV 2023) (4-7 June 2023 in Anchorage, Alaska), and successfully hosted the workshop “Development of Socially-compliant Driving Behaviour for Automated Vehicles to Enhance Safety and Efficiency in Mixed Traffic”. There was a cozy and fruitful round discussion. Follow-ups and relevant updates will be posted and a white paper might be open-sourced after our ITSC 2023 workshop “Data-driven and Empirical Research for Emerging Mixed Traffic of Automated Vehicles and Human-driven Vehicles”.
• 05/2023: On May 15th, I started my research visit as a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley. Curious to explore and willing to initiate cooperation.
• 05/2023: I received the TU Delft-Transport Institute Interdisciplinary Research Grant (10,500 €). It will support my research visit at the University of California, Berkeley.
• 03/2023: Cooperating with researchers from Tsinghua University, Tongji University, University of Minnesota, University of Hong Kong (HKU), and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou), our workshop proposal “Data-driven and Empirical Research for Emerging Mixed Traffic of Automated Vehicles and Human-driven Vehicles” had been accepted by the 26th IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSC 2023). The confirmed speakers are from MIT, UC Berkeley, ETH Zürich, EPFL, IC London, CTH, Univ. of Memphis, and Motional Inc. The workshop will combine presentation and interactive sessions. See you on 24 September 2023 in Bilbao, Spain. Workshop website and Call-for-Papers are available through this link.
• 03/2023: I received the Erasmus+ mobility Grant for the third time. It will support my upcoming short research visit to the Transport Research Hub @ University College Dublin (UCD), Ireland.
• 01/2023: I attended and presented three papers at the Transportation Research Board (TRB) 102nd annual meeting (TRB 2023) in Washington, D.C. The posters of the three papers, i.e., Sequential Neural Network Model with Spatial-Temporal Attention Mechanism for Robust Lane Detection Using Multi Continuous Image Frames, Robust Lane Detection through Self Pre-training with Masked Sequential Autoencoders and Fine-tuning with Customized PolyLoss (preprint will be released soon), and Optimization of coordinated flow restriction and skip-stopping schemes for urban rail stations considering platform carrying capacity are available online through TRB portal and TU Delft research repository, and can be found easily at my google scholar page.
• 12/2022: Our group is conducting a survey about developing socially compliant automated vehicles in mixed traffic, which can be accessed through this link. Every successfully filled questionnaire will result in a donation of 5 euros to the United Nations Road Safety Fund. Experts in Automated Vehicles and related topics are highly welcome to participate.
• 11/2022: Our workshop proposal “Development of Socially-compliant Driving Behaviour for Automated Vehicles to Enhance Safety and Efficiency in Mixed Traffic” had been accepted by the IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium (IV 2023). See you on 4 June 2023 in Anchorage, Alaska! Workshop website and Call-for-Papers are available through this link.
• 11/2022: I will present our paper titled Towards Developing Socially-Compliant Automated Vehicles: State of the Practice, Experts Expectations, and a Conceptual Framework on the 4th Symposium on Management of Future Motorway and Urban Traffic Systems 2022 (MFTS2022), which will take place from 30 November to 2 December 2022 in Dresden, Germany.
• 11/2022: I received the Erasmus+ mobility Grant for the second time.
• 10/2022: I presented our paper Comparative Study on Supervised versus Semi-supervised Machine Learning for Anomaly Detection of In-vehicle CAN Network at ITSC 2022. Check the recorded Video.
• 09/2022: I received the IEEE ITSS Young Professionals Travelling Fellowship. I will present the topic Multi-goal Proactive Traffic Management for Mixed Traffic of Automated Vehicles and Human-driven Vehicles on 25 November 2022, in Chania, Greece.
• 09/2022: I attended the TRAIL Ph.D. Congress 2022 and presented my work there.
• 09/2022: Our paper Aspects to Consider for Modeling Automated Driving in Microscopic Traffic Simulations: State of the Practice and Research Needs is published in the journal of IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems.
• 02/2022: My paper A Hybrid Spatial-temporal Deep Learning Architecture for Lane Detection is published in the journal of Computer-Aided Civil and Infrastructure Engineering {Video1} {Video2}.

Miscellany

I am a vegetarian and minimalist. I like Taichi, reading, and travelling.
I regularly practice meditation to pursue the Inner Peace.
I see travelling, reading, and meditation all as ways to explore the world, externally and internally, and they help stimulate my research inspirations.

Quotes:
“If anything is worth doing, do it with all your heart.”
“Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted really counts.”
“Live in the Present Moment. Irrespective of what happened yesterday or last year, and what may or may not happen tomorrow, the present moment is where you are—always.”