Dr. Habib Ahmed

habib.ahmed@giki.edu.pk

Dr. Habib Ahmed

Assistant Professor

Engr. Dr. Habib Ahmed has a PhD in Computer Engineering from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Nevada Reno (UNR), Reno, Nevada (NV), United States of America (USA). During his PhD, his research was mainly focused on two major research streams related to automation of bridge inspection: (i) rebar detection and localization for bridge decks and (ii) steel defect detection for steel bridges. During his PhD, he has worked on more than eight different projects, which have been funded by major funding agencies in the United States of America and Vietnam, namely US Department of Transportation (US DOT), US National Science Foundation (US NSF), Nevada Department of Transportation (NV DOT) and Vietnam Innovation Foundation (VINIF). Between 2019 and 2023, Engr. Dr. Habib worked under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Hung Manh La, who is the Director of Advanced Robotics and Automation (ARA) Lab, Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE), UNR, USA. With more than $1.4 million in funding, Prof. Dr. Hung Manh La’s ARA Lab at the Department of CSE, UNR, USA is one of the most well-connected and well-funded research lab at UNR, USA and beyond.

Earlier, Dr. Habib did his ME in Robotics and Intelligent Machine Engineering from National University of Science and Technology, Islamabad, Pakistan under the supervision of Air Commodore Prof. Dr. Syed Irtiza Ali Shah, who is currently working as a full Professor at Air University, Islamabad, Pakistan. His MS thesis focused on the development of automated system for Pakistani sign language (PSL) detection system. During his MS tenure between 2012 to 2016, he published more than five research papers, which includes one journal paper, and four conference papers.

Currently, Dr. Habib has more than 15 publications, more than 6 research conference papers (including 2 best paper finalist awards, one in IEEE International Conference on Information and Automation (ICIA) 2018, and one in IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) 2022, which is the top-tier Robotics conference in the world) published during his PhD tenure, 4 research journal papers in high impact- factor journals (e.g. Developments in Built Environment, Automation in Construction, International Journal of Social Robotics, and Sensors) published during his PhD tenure, 1 under-review journal in high impact-factor journal during his PhD tenure, and 7 submitted journal papers in high impact-factor journals (e.g. IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging, Artificial Intelligence Review, Cluster Computing, Computers in Human Behavior, to name a few) during his PhD tenure.

Publications

Ahmed, C. P. Le and H. M. La. Pixel-Level Classification for Bridge Deck Rebar Detection and Localiza- tion using Multi-Stage Deep Encoder-Decoder Network. Developments in the Built Environment. Elsevier publisher. Vol. 14, 100132, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dibe.2023 .100132. Impact Factor: 5.563.

Ahmed, H. M. La and K. Tran. Rebar Detection and Localization for Bridge Deck Inspection and Eval- uation using Deep Residual Network. Automation in Construction, Elsevier publisher, Vol. 120, 103393, 2020, ISSN 0926-5805, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aut- con.2020.103393 . Impact Factor: 7.2.

Ahmed, H. M. La and N. Gucunski. Review of Non- Destructive Civil Infrastructure Evaluation for Bridges: State-of-the-Art Robotic Platforms, Sensors and Algorithms. Sensors, Vol. 20, 3954, pages 1-38. July 2020. Impact Factor: 3.275. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s20143954

Ahmed, and H. M. La. Evaluating the Co-Dependence and Co-Existence between Religion and Robots: Past, Present and Insights on the Future. International Journal of Social Robotics, Springer Publisher, Vol. 13, pages 219–235. March 2020. ISSN 1875-4805. Impact Factor: 3.8. http://ara.cse.unr.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Ahmed-La2020_Article_EvaluatingTheCo-dependenceAndC.pdf

Ahmed, A. Tavakolli and H. M. La. Use of Deep Encoder-Decoder Network for Sub-Surface Inspection and Evaluation of Bridge Decks. In: Proceedings of the 13th International Workshop on Structural Health Monitoring 2021, pp. 832-841. Stanford, CA, USA. http://ara.cse.unr.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/ IWSHM2021_370_Published.pdf

Ahmed, and H. M. La. Steel Defect Detection in Bridges Using Deep Encoder-Decoder Networks. In: Proceedings of 13th International Workshop on Structural Health Monitoring (IWSHM), pp. 842-849. Stanford, CA, USA. 2021. http://ara.cse.unr.edu/wp-con- tent/uploads/2022/11/IWSHM2021_381_Published.pdf

Ahmed, S. T. Nguyen, D. La, C. P. Le, and H. M. La, (2022). Multi-directional Bicycle Robot for Bridge Inspection with Steel Defect Detection System. In: Proceedings of 2022 IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), pp. 4617- 4624. (Best Application Paper Finalist). https:// ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9981325/
Ahmed, H. M. La and G. Pekcan. Rebar Detection and Localization for Non-Destructive Infrastructure Evaluation using Deep Residual Networks, the 14^th International Symposium on Visual Computing (ISVC), pp 631–643. Oct. 7-9, 2019, Lake Tahoe, NV, USA. http://ara.cse.unr.edu/wp-content/uploads/ 2014/12/ISVC2019_Habib.pdf
Ahmed, H. M. La, and N. Gucunski. Rebar Detection using Ground Penetrating Radar with State-of-the-art Convolutional Neural Networks. In Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Structural Health Monitoring of Intelligent Infrastructure (SHMII- 9), August 4-7, St. Louis, Missouri, 2019. https:// ara.cse.unr.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/SHMII-GPR-Paper-Final-Version–4.pdf

H. Ahmed, H. M. La. Education-Robotics Symbiosis: An Evaluation of Challenges and Proposed Recommendations. Proceedings of the 2019 IEEE Integrated STEM Education Conference (ISEC), Princeton University, March 16, 2019. https://ara.cse.unr.edu/wp-con- tent/uploads/2014/12/Education-Robotics-Paper- 9.5.pdf