Clarkson Students Share Cutting-Edge Research on Smarter, Safer Transportation
Clarkson University students and researchers are advancing the future of transportation through projects on self-driving cars, electric vehicles, and cybersecurity. Their work was recently showcased at the IEEE International Conference on Mobility: Operations, Services, and Technologies (MOST 2025) and at the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) eCAT center spring meeting, both in Newark, DE.
At MOST 2025, the Clarkson team joined leading researchers and industry experts from around the world to share solutions for land, air, and sea mobility.
One of the standout projects was the development of a retrofitted electric regenerative braking system, or ERB, for buses. Mechanical engineering senior and honors student Thomas Bondaruk designed the first version, which focused on the mechanical parts needed to capture energy when a bus slows down. That energy, instead of being lost as heat, is stored in a battery. Later, it can be used to help the bus accelerate. Master’s student Sean Willis built on Bondaruk’s design, creating a second version that improved the electrical control system. Their working prototype shows how existing school buses could become more efficient and environmentally friendly.
Ph.D. student Mark Southcott presented a project that uses radar to improve safety in autonomous vehicles. His work applies radar sensors to detect whether an area is a road, a sidewalk, or an obstacle. By separating roads from other objects, such as parked cars or trees, the system helps self-driving cars make safer and faster decisions. Radar also works well in poor weather, giving it an advantage over cameras alone.
Master’s student Robert Arcate shared his research on using GPS to guide unmanned ground vehicles. His system relies on ROS2, an open-source robotics platform, and an Inertial Sense device that helps improve accuracy when GPS signals are weak. This research is critical for autonomous navigation in places where GPS alone may not be reliable, such as forests or cities with tall buildings.
Another project focused on defending autonomous systems from cyberattacks. Master’s student Richard Neddo, with co-authors Sean Willis and Zander Blasingame, tested ways to protect machine learning models that help self-driving cars identify objects and road signs. Hackers can try to trick these systems into making dangerous mistakes, but Neddo’s work adapts advanced vision transformers with new defense methods to keep vehicles secure.
Southcott and Bondaruk were also among a small group of students nationwide selected to receive prestigious NSF travel grants to attend the conference.
Following the IEEE event, Clarkson researchers attended the NSF eCAT center meeting. Clarkson is a university site for the center, which connects universities and industry partners to advance electric, connected, and autonomous mobility technologies. Arcate gave a progress report on autonomous route navigation. Willis proposed expanding testing of the ERB system. Postdoctoral researcher Dr. Chutitep Woralert presented work on protecting grid-tied inverters, which are key for linking renewable energy systems to the power grid.
All of the students and researchers are members of Clarkson’s Cybersecurity, Autonomous systems and Machine learning Engineering Lab (CAMEL). The lab is directed by Chen Liu, professor of electrical and computer engineering and Clarkson’s site director for the eCAT center.
“Clarkson students are solving real-world problems in autonomous and connected systems,” Liu said. “Their work shows both innovation and practical solutions that can make transportation safer and more efficient.”
