About
Bilal undertook his PhD research in Control Systems Engineering in the Future Mobility Lab at the University of Southampton, supervised by Dr Anil Madhusudhanan and Professor Suleiman M. Sharkh. His doctoral research focused on energy-efficient motion control for connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs), with particular emphasis on signalised intersection crossings using Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) communication. His work combined data-driven modelling, model-based control, and real-world validation to develop methods that can be assessed systematically in simulation and on instrumented vehicles.
His research combined EV energy consumption modelling using system identification and machine learning, trajectory optimisation for signal crossing, model predictive control (MPC) for closed-loop longitudinal control, and experimental validation. A major part of his work involved developing Vehicle-in-the-Loop and real-time controller validation workflows to connect simulation-based research with real-world testing.
Bilal subsequently joined the Control Systems Research Group at Loughborough University as a Postdoctoral Research Associate, where his work focuses on MPC and the development of reusable MATLAB/Simulink tools for robust and linear parameter varying MPC.