Walter Zimmer

Technical University of Munich (TUM), Munich

Research Assistant • March, 2020 — March, 2024

• Working in 2 research projects. 1) Providentia++ (BMDV project), 2) AUTOTech.agil (BMBF project)
• Focus on 3D perception (3D object detection) for autonomous driving (Python, C++, ROS, PyTorch3D, Open3D)
• Creating a digital twin of the traffic using roadside camera and LiDAR sensors (Python, C++, ROS, PyTorch, CARLA)
• 20 travels (conferences, talks, workshops, advanced trainings)
• Attending 4 trade fairs. 1) IAA'21 2) Automatica'22 3) IAA'23 4) Automatica'23
• Participation in 3 hackathons. 1) HackaTUM'19 (winner, certificate) 2) wirvsvirushackathon'20 (certificate) 3) HackaTUM'22 (certificate)
• 3 training certificates. 1) Self-Driving Cars (coursera) 2) Visual Perception for Self-Driving Cars (coursera) 3) VDI ADAS Validation
• 8 oral presentations. 1) IV'19, 2) ITS World Congress 2021, 3) IV'22, 4) MobilTUM'23, 5) IV'23 6) ITSC'23 workshop panel discussion 7) ITSC'23 oral presentation, 8) Munich Data Geeks 2023
• Open source software development with >600 github stars

STTech GmbH, Munich

Systems Engineer • Apr, 2019 — March, 2020

• Development of an intelligent self-driving highway agent (Python)
• Implementation of complex traffic scenarios in a 3D vehicle simulator (Python)
• Calibration of cameras for vehicles and robots (Python, C++)
• Implementation of automatic recommender systems using neural networks (Python, Deep Graph Library (DGL))

Audi AG, Ingolstadt

Working student • Mar, 2018 — Sept, 2018

• 3D Object Detection in point cloud data. Algorithm based on PointNet++, AVOD (Python, TensorFlow)
• Sensor data processing and fusion (camera images, LiDAR point clouds). Python, C++, ADTF, Docker

Siemens AG, Munich

Research Assistant • Oct, 2016 — Aug, 2017

• Implementation of an admin dashboard for the visualization of parallel processes (NodeJS, AngularJS)
• Data pre-processing und extraction (JavaScript, JSON)

SSI Schäfer IT Solutions GmbH, Giebelstadt

Software Engineer • Sept, 2013 — Feb, 2018

• Implementation of standalone and web-based 3D warehouse simulations (Java, OpenGL, LWJGL, WebGL, THREE.JS, WebSockets)
• Data visualization (JavaScript, AngularJS, NodeJS, WebGL, d3.js)

Technical University of Munich (TUM), Munich

PhD Student • April, 2019 — Mar, 2024

• PhD Thesis - Advanced 3D Perception for Autonomous Driving (available soon)
• Attending 8 IEEE conferences - IV'19 (poster presentation), IV'20 (virtual attendance), IROS'20 (virtual attendance), IV'21 (virtual attendance), IV'22 (oral presentation), IV'23 (oral presentation), ITSC'23 (oral presentation, best student paper award), IV'24
• Attending 6 non-IEEE conferences - TechAD'21, MobilTUM'22 (virtual presentation), VDI'22 (Driver Assistance Systems), ITS World Congress, Tagung Autonomes Fahren 2022, VDI'23 (Environment Perception)
• Author of 17 papers (10 first author). 6 peer-reviewed accepted conference publications (5 first author), 1 accepted peer-reviewed non-IEEE publication, 4 journal papers under revision, 1 conference paper under review (first author), 2 conference paper under rebuttal (1 first author), 3 conference paper under revision (3 first author)
• Reviewer for 11 IEEE conferences (IV'19, IV'20, IV'21, ITSC'21, IV'22, ITSC'22, IV'23, ITSC'23, ICCV'23, IV'24, CVPR'24) and 3 IEEE journals (RA-L'23, T-ITS'23, T-IV'24). In total 51 paper were reviewed.
• > 150 paper citations on Google Scholar
• Organization of 4 IEEE conference workshops - IV'21 (virtual), IV'23, IV'24, ECCV'24
• Attending 8 graduate school courses. 1) Develop your Entrepreneurial Thinking, 2) SCRUM Professional (certificate) 3) C++ Software Design Patterns (certificate) 4) Leadership seminar 5) Scientific Paper Writing (certificate), 6) MLOps (certificate) 7) Dissertation Writing Workshop 8) Leadership seminar
• 2 PhD retreats
• Attending 1 summer school - DeepLearn'22 (certificate)
• Supervision of 37 thesis students. More than 100 student interviews.
• Teaching 3 seminars. 1) Visual Feature Learning for Autonomous Driving (SS'21) 2) 3D Perception for Autonomous Driving (WS'21/22) 3) 3D Perception for Autonomous Driving (SS'22)
• Received 2 awards (hackaTUM'19, ITSC'23 best student paper award)
• 1 invited guest lecture - UCSD (virtual)

University of California in San Diego (UCSD), San Diego

Visiting Scholar • Sep, 2018 — Mar, 2019

• Autonomous Driving Researcher (Perception) in the Laboratory of Intelligent and Safe Automobiles (LISA), Prof. Trivedi
• Development and publication of a 3D Labeling Tool (IV'19), 13,800 annotations/hour (JavaScript, NodeJS, AngularJS, TypeScript).
• Labeled data recorded by a Tesla Model S (instrumentalized with 11 cameras and 1 LiDAR sensor).

Technical University of Munich (TUM), Munich

Master of Science, Computer Science • Sep, 2016 — Aug, 2018

• Focus on Autonomous Driving, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Computer Vision, Robotics, Software Engineering
• Presentation of the project 'Intelligent Garage Door Opening System' at the Living Lab Connected Mobility (LLCM) conference (Automatic opening of a garage door after successfully recognizing the license plate of your own vehicle using object detection. Garage door can be configured via a web application and smartphone app. (Python, JavaScript, NodeJS, AngularJS, Java)
• Project in the area of Fleet Management 'Solving the Vehicle Routing Problem using Genetic Algorithms' (Minimizing the route, maximizing visited cities and 3 more constraints)

Audi AG, Ingolstadt

Master’s thesis • Mar, 2018 — Aug, 2018

• Correction of 3D labels using neural networks to improve the dataset
• Automatic correction of 3D ground truth information for piloted driving functions based on Velodyne point clouds and camera images using Deep Learning methods. Grade 1.3 (3.8/4.0).

Technical University of Delft (TUD), Delft

Study abroad • Sep, 2017 — Feb, 2018

• Passed 10 courses in Autonomous Driving and Machine Learning

Cooperative State University (DHBW), Mosbach

Bachelor studies, Computer Science • Sep, 2013 — Sep, 2016

• Focus on Machine Learning, Computer Vision and Software Engineering. ∅ 1.7 (3.6/4.0)
• International experience during 6th semester, International Program of Engineering.
• Student research project in the area of Genetic Algorithms (Machine Learning). 1.0 (4.0/4.0)

SSI Schäfer IT Solutions GmbH, Giebelstadt

Bachelor’s thesis • Jun, 2016 — Sep, 2016

• Development of a 3D Warehouse Editor (3D Rendering Engine) for Visualization of Intra-Logistic Warehouses. Grade 1.9 (3.4/4.0)

AUTOTech.agil

Project member • October, 2022 — March, 2024

Electric, connected and automated. The transformation of road traffic wants to be actively shaped and contribute to increasing safety and efficiency for all road users through innovations. The AUTOtech.agil consortium project aims to create an open software and electrical/electronic architecture for the future mobility system. The special focus is on the standardization of interfaces as well as modularization with the aim of reusability, updatability, and expandability of individual functional modules. This modular principle of all necessary software and hardware elements for vehicles of all types makes it easy to implement additions and extensions in research, development, production, and, above all, in the utilization phase. The architecture for driverless vehicles researched and developed in the predecessor project UNICARagil is being extended to the entire transportation system, especially in the areas of software and tools for software development. Infrastructure-based sensor technology and cooperative concepts with control rooms and clouds are also being researched in depth. Three exemplary applications are used to demonstrate and implement the concepts with social value 1) Mobility for people with age- or illness-related performance limitations. 2) The sustainable transport of critical goods such as medicines. 3) A "guardian angel function" for greater safety of vulnerable road users, for example those on foot or by bicycle. Successful achievement of the project goal is only possible through interdisciplinary cooperation between leading partners from research with 17 chairs at nine universities and industry with three SMEs and nine companies in the field of automated and connected driving. The research project is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) under the "Electronics and Software Development Methods for the Digitalization of Automobility (Mannheim)" funding guideline (see project sheet DLR project management organization).

Providentia++

Project member • March, 2020 — June, 2022

The "Providentia++" project by the Technical University of Munich aims to advance autonomous driving in mixed traffic conditions. The goal is to optimize traffic flow, reduce accidents, and leverage data collected by autonomous vehicles for commercial and scientific purposes. The project focuses on addressing challenges in complex traffic scenarios, such as intersections and roundabouts, where the limited field of vision of autonomous vehicles is insufficient. The project extends the existing infrastructure from the A9 motorway to urban areas in Garching-Hochbrück, aiming to test and research the interaction between autonomous vehicles and infrastructure in city traffic. To enhance system reliability, the project involves merging data streams from autonomous vehicles and infrastructure, optimizing algorithms for evaluating traffic situations, and ensuring robust operation in changing environmental conditions. "Providentia++" also emphasizes the development of a platform providing real-time traffic data, offering a uniform interface for commercial and scientific third-party software. The project is executed by a consortium of research institutes and industrial partners, spanning robotics, artificial intelligence, software technology, automotive, communication technology, and semiconductor technology.

Software Engineering

Having more than 15 years of experience in Software Development, I am confident with Software Architecture, Object Oriented Design, Design Patterns, Test Driven Development (TDD), Continuous Integration and Delivery (CI/CD).

Machine Learning

I am experienced Machine Learning research engineer with more than nine years of experience. Developing novel architectures, optimizing algorithms through hyperparameter tuning, training and evaluating machine learning models is one of my key strengths.

Data Science

Experienced with data science techniques from storage of large data, transforming/converting data, curating ground truth datasets, building models (Python, PyTorch) to the visualization of data (open3d).

Autonomous Driving

I have more than eight years of experience in developing autonomous driving software from perception (3D object detection) to prediction. I am expert in working with sensor data, creating ground truth datasets, and developing machine learning models for autonomous driving.

Analytical Skills

I can quickly analyze new information, find solutions and make decisions.

Motivation and passion

I am very passioned about the work I do which makes me to deliver great results in a short time.

Leadership skills

I have experience in leading projects at university and acquired my skills in seminars and university certification programs.

Collaborative Semantic Occupancy Prediction with Hybrid Feature Fusion in Connected Automated Vehicles

IEEE • 2024

Rui Song, Chenwei Liang, Hu Cao, Zhiran Yan, Walter Zimmer, Markus Gross, Andreas Festag, Alois Knoll

ActiveAnno3D - An Active Learning Framework for Multi-Modal 3D Object Detection

IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium (IV'24) (under review) • 2024

Ahmed Ghita, Bjørk Antoniussen, Walter Zimmer, Ross Greer, Christian Creß, Andreas Møgelmose, Mohan M. Trivedi, Alois C. Knoll

TUMTraf Event - Calibration and Fusion Resulting in a Dataset for Roadside Event-Based and RGB Cameras

IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Vehicles (T-IV'24) (under revision) • 2023

Christian Creß, Walter Zimmer, Nils Purschke, Bach Ngoc Doan, Venkatnarayanan Lakshminarasimhan, Leah Strand, Alois C Knoll

Transformation Decoupling Strategy based on Screw Theory for Deterministic Point Cloud Registration with Gravity Prior

TPAMI (under revision) • 2024

Xinyi Li, Zijian Ma, Yinlong Liu, Walter Zimmer, Hu Cao, Feihu Zhang, Alois Knoll

TUMTraf Intersection Dataset - All You Need for Urban 3D Camera-LiDAR Roadside Perception

IEEE International Transportation Systems Conference (ITSC'23) (accepted) • 2023

Walter Zimmer, Christian Creß, Huu Tung Nguyen, Alois C Knoll

InfraDet3D - Multi-modal 3D Object Detection based on Roadside Infrastructure Camera and LiDAR Sensors

IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium (IV'23) (accepted) • 2023

Walter Zimmer, Joseph Birkner, Marcel Brucker, Huu Tung Nguyen, Stefan Petrovski, Bohan Wang, Alois C Knoll

Real-time and Robust 3D Object Detection with Roadside LiDARs

Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. (accepted) • 2023

Walter Zimmer, Jialong Wu, Xingcheng Zhou, Alois C Knoll

AUTOtech.agil - Architecture and Technologies for Orchestrating Automotive Agility

IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision Workshop (ICCV'23) (accepted) • 2023

Raphael van Kempen, Walter Zimmer, Christian Creß, Xingcheng Zhou, ..., Alois Knoll, Lutz Eckstein

Multi-Task Consistency for Active Learning

IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision Workshop (ICCV'23) (accepted) • 2023

Aral Hekimoglu, Philipp Friedrich, Walter Zimmer, Michael Schmidt, Alvaro Marcos-Ramiro, Alois Knoll

A9-Dataset - Multi-Sensor Infrastructure-based Dataset for Mobility Research

IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium (IV'22) (accepted) • 2022

Christian Creß, Walter Zimmer, Leah Strand, Maximilian Fortkord, Siyi Dai, Venkatnarayanan Lakshminarasimhan, Alois Knoll

Real-time and Robust 3D Object Detection within Road-side LiDARs using Domain Adaptation

British Machine Vision Conference (BMVC'22) (under revision) • 2022

Walter Zimmer, Marcus Grabler, Alois Knoll

A Survey of Robust 3D Object Detection Methods in Point Clouds

Intelligent Vehicles Symposium (IV'20) (under revision) • 2020

Walter Zimmer, Emec Ercelik, Xingcheng Zhou, Xavier Jair Diaz Ortiz, Alois Knoll

3D BAT - A Semi-Automatic, Web-based 3D Annotation Toolbox for Full-Surround, Multi-Modal Data Streams

Intelligent Vehicles Symposium (IV'19) (accepted) • 2019

Walter Zimmer, Akshay Rangesh and Mohan Trivedi

Solving the Container Shipment Problem with the Focus on Special Goods (Dangerous and Fragile) Using Genetic Algorithms

IEEE Symposium Series on Computational Intelligence 2016 (SSCI'16) (under revision) • 2016

Walter Zimmer, Carsten Mueller

IEEE ITSC'23 Best Student Paper Award

ITSS IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Society • 2023

Best Student Paper Award at the IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Conference (ITSC) 2023

Hackathon

Technical University of Munich (TUM) • 2019

1. Place at one of 10 challenges, 121 teams. Road Rendering Challenge Winner Award from Autonomous Intelligent Driving (AID). Price includes visiting a conference.

Semester ranking

Technical University of Munich (TUM) • 2018

Within the best 28% of master students (after 3rd master semester). Passed 7 exams (+41 ECTS) in addition.

Nomination for a research stay abroad

Technical University of Munich (TUM) • 2017

Research stay abroad at the University of California, UCSD, San Diego, USA (16% selection rate)

Awarding Bachelor certificate

Cooperative State University Mosbach (DHBW) • 2019

Within the best 10-20% of students (same year of graduation)

Awarding Information Technology high-school diploma

Highschool for Information Technology (ITG) • 2013

Within the best 20% of students (same year of graduation)

ADAS Validation

VDI • 2023

From simulation to real-world testing. Learn how to validate ADAS functions and systems. Understand the requirements for ADAS validation and the methods for testing and validation. Get to know the challenges of ADAS validation and the methods for testing and validation.

MLOps - Operationalizing Data Science Notebooks

Technical University of Munich (TUM), Munich • 2022

Develop an understanding of MLOps and the required steps to bring a reproducible and traceable ML model to production including an example project using open-source MLOps tools.

Visual Perception for Self-Driving Cars

Coursera • 2021

Work with the pinhole camera model, and perform intrinsic and extrinsic camera calibration. Detect, describe and match image features and design your own convolutional neural networks. Apply these methods to visual odometry, object detection and tracking. Apply semantic segmentation for drivable surface estimation.

Introduction to Self-Driving Cars

Coursera • 2021

Understand commonly used hardware used for self-driving cars. Identify the main components of the self-driving software stack. Program vehicle modelling and control. Analyze the safety frameworks and current industry practices for vehicle development.

Scrum Basics and Scrum Master Exam Preparation

Technical University of Munich (TUM), Munich • 2021

The seminar included contents from the following domains 1) Introduction to Agile Practices. 2) The Scrum Framework 2.1) Scrum Artifacts 2.2) The Scrum Team 2.3) Scrum Events 2.4) Further Topics 3) Sample Exam Questions and Exercises

Scientific Paper Writing

Technical University of Munich (TUM), Munich • 2021

Analyzing and evaluating sample papers. Reflecting on your own writing process. Making critical judgements on your own writing. Creating a repertoire of effective self-editing tools.

Goal Setting Skills

Udemy • 2020

Learn how to set and achieve your goals.

Modern C++ Software Design

Technical University of Munich (TUM), Munich • 2020

Advanced C++ training on object-oriented (OO) software design with the C++ programming language. The focus of the training is put on the essential OO and C++ software development principles, concepts, idioms, and best practices, which enable programmers to create professional, high-quality code. The course teaches guidelines to develop mature, robust, and maintainable C++ code and combines lectures and hands-on sessions.

Certificate of Participation

31st IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium (IV) 2020, Las Vegas • 2020

Attending the IV'20 conference (remote).

Certificate of Participation

30th IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium (IV) 2020, Paris • 2019

Presenting research work (3D Labeling Tool) at the IV'19 conference

Entrepreneurship Certificate Program

University of California in San Diego (UCSD), San Diego • 2019

Certified in entrepreneurship.

Lean Six Sigma - White and Yellow Belt

University of California in San Diego (UCSD), San Diego • 2019

Certified in process and quality improvement.

Strengths-Based Leadership

University of California in San Diego (UCSD), San Diego • 2018

Training for becoming a leader (know your strengths)

iLead Leadership Development Program

University of California in San Diego (UCSD), San Diego • 2018

Training for acquiring leadership skills

Interpersonal Relationships Seminar

University of California in San Diego (UCSD), San Diego • 2018

Build relationship, train intercultural communication, lead difficult conversations

MOVE-II Satellite, IDP Certificate

Technical University of Munich (TUM), Munich • 2018

14 months long interdisciplinary project in Space Mission Operations. Implementation of a web user interface for the Mission Control Center for the satellite mission MOVE-II. Development of a web admin dashboard for controlling the satellite, create visualizations (Web Development, JavaScript, TypeScript, AngularJS, NodeJS, d3.JS)

Language certificate

Technical University of Munich (TUM), Munich • 2017

DAAD English language certificate, C1 level

Intercultural competence & communication workshop

Technical University of Munich (TUM), Munich • 2016

Build intercultural communication skills

Hackathon

Technical University of Munich (TUM), Munich • 2016, 2019, 2022

TUM Hackathon (HackaTUM). Develop and present a prototype to several companies. Smart Garage Door (2016), roads.sexy (2019, winner)

International Program in Engineering (IPE)

Cooperative State University Mosbach (DHBW), Mosbach • 2016

International semester in the area of Automation Systems Engineering. Focus on Extended Concepts in Automation, Simulative Engineering, Embedded Systems. Passed 12 exams.

Trainer certificate

Cooperative State University Mosbach (DHBW), Mosbach • 2016

Certified trainer (passed two exams).

ACX Application Developer

SSI Schäfer IT Solutions GmbH • 2013

Certified Java Application Developer

• Autonomous Driving
• Machine Learning and Deep Learning
• Data Science
• Software Engineering

Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Alois C. Knoll

Chair of Artificial Intelligence, Robotics & Real-time Systems at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), Munich, Germany

+49 (89) 289 - 18104

k@tum.de

Prof. Dr. Mohan M. Trivedi, Distinguished Professor

Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Department at University of California in San Diego (UCSD), San Diego, California, USA

858-822-0075

mtrivedi@ucsd.edu