Role: Accumulator (Battery) Electrical Lead | prev. Team Member 

Duration: August 2023 - September 2025

Skills: Schematic Capture, PCB Design, Embedded Systems, HV Safety & Wiring, EV Battery Architecture, Soldering, Battery Simulation and Modelling

Tools: Altium, MATLAB, Simulink, TI C2000 Microcontrollers, C, C++

Project Goal: To develop a fully-functioning battery pack for the 2025 UWindsor FSAE EV car

Deliverables: 

• Manufacture a 470V battery pack, containing over 500 cells within 6 modules

  • • Finalized cell and module configurations, specifications and sizings to meet requirements from other teams

    • Created HV harnesses to facilitate module connections by cutting and crimping HV wires, and used Surloks to ensure safe connections. 

• Fabricate systems needed for cooperation between the battery and powertrain components 

  • • Revised our team's Precharge board for a more robust use case 

•  Design our own custom modular BMS 

  • • Performed schematic capture for boards that utilized the TI BQ796xx chipset for our custom BMS PCBs. 

    • Utilized a TI C2000 microcontroller to control peripherals in BMS using SPI

• Generate high-level simulations and models to predict system behaviour 

  • Executed RPT tests to solve for cell model parameters

  • Initiated the development of a system-wide Simulink model to predict faults, performance and changes in architecture 

• Lead a team of over 15 students with varying levels of experience 

  • Defined project scope and deadlines, and taught the fundamentals 

  • Provided professional development, such as mock interviews and resume reviews

What I've Learned: 

• FSAE provided me with an opportunity to gain insight into all the steps within the product design process, starting from simulation and ending with hands-on manufacturing, and this type of experience is hard to come by 

• All designs should start with a simulation or schematic, and all parts of these initial documents should be scrutinized until all potential problems are fixed 

• Managing an engineering design project with a scope akin to this requires a heavy time commitment that will be taken from other initiatives: commitment is key, but overcommitment is dangerous

Role: Research Assistant, Dr. Ahmed Hamdi Sakr 

Duration: June 2024 - August 2025

Skills: Python, Literature Review, Reinforcement Learning, Cooperative Active Cruise Control (CACC)

Libraries: Gymnasium, PettingZoo, AgileRL, stable-baselines3, numpy, matplotlib, pandas, conda

Project Goal: To utilize deep reinforcement learning to train cooperative active cruise controllers

Deliverables: 

• Understand the fundamentals of reinforcement learning and cooperative active cruise control

• Use real-life traffic data to model follower vehicle

  • Parsed data from NGSIM i-80 dataset: https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/research/operations/06137/

• Create and test a single-agent custom CACC-based environment

  • Established a Gymnasium environment with a follower and leader car, with the main objective of the follower car being able to keep a stable time headway between the two vehicles. 

  • State Space: Follower position and velocity, leader position and velocity 

  • Action Space: Acceleration or Deceleration 

  • Robust reward function mapped using a log-normal probability distribution

  • Used TD3 for off-policy training 

• Create and test a multi-agent custom CACC-based environment

  • Used PettingZoo to enable multiple follower cars behind the leader, keeping the same time headway between each vehicle

  • Evaluating test results for training time and stability

What I've Learned: 

• Reinforcement learning is also just another subsection of artifical intelligance, and its exciting to know that there is so much more to explore!

• This project was a big hurdle in my programming journey: I had to learn about library management with conda, dynamic programming, and a lot of other simulation-related activities that I have never touched upon. This project has humbled me and has shown me that I've barely touched the tip of the iceberg. 

Role: Project Member, Capstone 

Duration: January 2025 - July 2025 

Skills: Electrochemistry, PCB Design, Literature Review, Experimental Setup Design, Data Processing, Embedded Programming

Tools: KiCAD, MATLAB, Python, ESP32, C++ 

Project Goal: To use EIS to detect foreign substances in beverages 

Deliverables: 

• Formulate a portable device that uses electrochemical impedance spectroscopy to detect drugs in beverages 

• Design a custom portable potentiostat: 

  • Utilized an open-source potentiostat design: the HELPStat, and made modifications for our use case. 

• Write a codebase to program ESP32 for data acquisition and progress 

  • Modified HELPStat code to fit our experimental setup, based on equivalent circuit model parameters 

  • Adjusted data transfer protocols to for wireless transmission directly into offline processing

• Process frequency data and map to equivalent circuit models 

  • Utilized tools such as Nyquist plots, model fitting and Kramer-Kronig relations to validate data, and mapped onto RC pairs 

What I've Learned: 

• Electrochemistry is something that is not touched upon in our electrical engineering program, so it was exciting to tackle such a new project 

• Literature review was a huge factor in this: finding open-source resources and piecing together theory to make this feasible might have been an entire project in itself

Role: Project Member

Duration: April 2025

Skills: Circuit Theory & Simulation, Embedded Control Design, Power Electronics, C2000 Microcontroller

Tools: KiCAD, Simulink, C++

Project Goal: To design a functional buck converter with active control 

Deliverables: 

• Simulate a buck converter in Simulink, which includes an active low-pass filter and a PI controller

  • Using Simscape Electrical, the entire buck converter system was modelled. This simulation was able to handle transient load behaviour, differing input voltages, and track any changes using a PID controller, with parameters optimized in MATLAB. 

• Design a PCB for the buck converter

  • Picked components that matched the proper power rating and sized them accordingly

• Manufactured and tested the buck converter 

  • Hand-soldered all components for the buck converter, and debugged any last issues with the board itself

What I've Learned: 

• Team communication is extremely important: each of the three team members was "in charge" of a main component of the project, but we soon realized that we all had to work together on everything for the project to be cohesive. 

• During the debugging phase, the team worked to solve lots of different issues and found creative solutions for them, which was the most fun part

• We were also one of the only teams to get it to function fully, but with one big caveat: we could not operate at max load due to an improperly specced inductor

Role: Research Assistant 

Duration: Feb 2022 - May 2024

Skills: Heat Transfer, Experimental Setup, Part Procurement, 3D Modelling

Tools: CATIA V5

Project Goal: To create an experimental setup to test a novel EV motor rotor design

Deliverables: 

• Conduct a literature review on EV rotor and stator thermal design and modelling

• Procure parts for the experimental setup 

  • Found motors, bearings, mounts and thermocouples for the setup based on experiment parameters 

• Create a mounting system for the experimental setup 

  • Used CATIA V5 to model an extrusion-based mount for the motor and rotor within the experimental setup

• Build a high-end workstation PC for simulation and modelling activities 

What I've Learned: 

• This was my first role in a research lab immediately after high school, and it put things into perspective for me. There are concepts that you can't just search up online: it takes patience to get the answers you want

• Being an electrical engineering student in a mechanical engineering lab, I had to put extra time in filling knowledge gaps, while also providing any electrical engineering assistance I could, whether it be simple circuits or power-related questions.