Mehdi's research will make smart computer systems more resilient

Mehdi Saman Azari holds a master degree in electrical engineering from Tarbiat Modares University in Teheran, Iran. He has specific competences in the areas of control theory and embedded systems, and has written a dissertation on designing active, fault-tolerant control systems.

Therefore, he can leverage on his peculiar background as well as on the expertise of members of the Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) research group in order to address challenges like adaptive control, failure detection and predictive maintenance based on artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. Addressing those challenges is nowadays essential in applications like smart cities, industry 4.0 and intelligent transportation.

Mehdi will be involved in several research initiatives, including Internet of Things (IoT) self-healing in the context of smart-troubleshooting and dependable AI control. This will take place in the context of the new Roadmaps for AI integration in the rail sector (RAILS) research project funded by Horizon 2020.

“I am currently in the process of improving my knowledge of machine learning by taking advanced courses. My objective is to master AI techniques in order to apply them to critical control systems for predictive maintenance, safety assurance in presence of uncertainties and resilience optimization”, Mehdi says.

Mehdi's tasks will include helping as a teaching assistant in the new embedded systems courses and managing the CPS lab equipment.

Mehdi is also productive in terms of scientific publications. He has started to contribute to dissemination by co-authoring two papers: a CRITIS 2019 industry session white paper, as well as a paper entitled Data-Driven Fault Diagnosis of Once-Through Benson Boilers (Mehdi Saman Azari, Francesco Flammini, Stefania Santini, Mauro Caporuscio) that has been accepted for publication by an IEEE-sponsored conference.

Mehdi Saman Azari will study under the main supervision of associate professor Francesco Flammini. Stefania Santini, associate professor at the University of Naples Federico II in Italy, and senior lecturer Mauro Caporuscio will also be supervising.