About Me
I am a doctoral candidate at RL Dresden and Technische Universität Dresden, supervised by Prof. Ostap Okhrin, and a research scientist at ScaDS.AI Dresden/Leipzig.
My research focuses on reinforcement learning for autonomous driving: developing RL solutions for diverse driving tasks, closing the sim-to-real gap for small-scale vehicles, and advancing ethical decision-making so autonomous systems are more responsible and reliable in real-world deployments.
📰 News
- 2025.08 : Our paper on ethical and responsible autonomous driving agents is now online.
- 2025.06 : Our survey paper focus on autonomous driving research for small-scale cars have been accepted for publication by IEEE TITS.
- 2024.10 : Our research was featured by Duckietown news .
- 2024.10 : Our paper with platform-agnostic DRL framework for Sim2Real transfer have been accepted for publication by Communications Engineering.
- 2023.09 : Our paper focus on vision-based DRL car following with Sim2Real transfer have been accepted for IEEE ITSC.
- 2023.04 : I am offcialy a doctoral candidate in TU Dresden.
- 2023.02 : Our paper Modified DDPG car-following model with a real-world human driving experience with CARLA simulator have been accepted for publication by TRC.
- 2022.10 : I attend the 27th Young Scientists Workshop in Statistical Week 2022.
- 2022.09 : We successfully hosted the Conference on Reinforcement Learning 2022 Dresden. A big thank you to all who attended and contributed to making it a success!
📝 Publications
Learning to Drive Ethically: Embedding Moral Reasoning into Autonomous Driving
Dianzhao Li, Ostap Okhrin
Under review (Nature Communications), 2025.
Dianzhao Li, Ostap Okhrin
Under review (Nature Communications), 2025.
Vision-based DRL Autonomous Driving Agent with Sim2Real Transfer
Dianzhao Li, Ostap Okhrin
IEEE 26th International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems (IEEE ITSC), 2023.
Dianzhao Li, Ostap Okhrin
IEEE 26th International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems (IEEE ITSC), 2023.
Modified DDPG car-following model with a real-world human driving experience with CARLA simulator
Dianzhao Li, Ostap Okhrin
Transportation research part C: emerging technologies (TRC), 2023.
Dianzhao Li, Ostap Okhrin
Transportation research part C: emerging technologies (TRC), 2023.
💼 Research Experience
2021.05 - Present
Research Scientist
ScaDS.AI Dresden/Leipzig, Germany
Developed and evaluated reinforcement learning algorithms for autonomous driving, advancing robust policy transfer, cross-framework benchmarking, and simulation-to-real adaptability in high-fidelity environments.
2019.06 - 2019.12
Research Intern
Precitec GmbH & Co. KG, Germany
Developed an end-to-end machine learning toolchain with visualization tools, applied to quality monitoring in laser material processing using self-learning vision and multi-sensor systems, including feature engineering and data augmentation.
Precitec GmbH & Co. KG, Germany
Developed an end-to-end machine learning toolchain with visualization tools, applied to quality monitoring in laser material processing using self-learning vision and multi-sensor systems, including feature engineering and data augmentation.
📖 Educations
2023.05 - Present
PhD
Technische Universität Dresden
Advisor: Prof. Ostap Okhrin , Prof. Liam Paull , Dr. Martin Treiber
Dissertation: Deep Reinforcement Learning for Autonomous Driving: Human-Informed, Ethical, and Transferable Agents
Technische Universität Dresden
Advisor: Prof. Ostap Okhrin , Prof. Liam Paull , Dr. Martin Treiber
Dissertation: Deep Reinforcement Learning for Autonomous Driving: Human-Informed, Ethical, and Transferable Agents
2017.03 - 2021.02
M.Sc.
Mechanical Engineering (Mechatronics & Information Technology)
Karlsruher Institut für Technologie
Advisor: Prof. Marcus Geimer
Master Thesis: Where Am I? SLAM for Mobile Machines on a Smart Working Site
Mechanical Engineering (Mechatronics & Information Technology)
Karlsruher Institut für Technologie
Advisor: Prof. Marcus Geimer
Master Thesis: Where Am I? SLAM for Mobile Machines on a Smart Working Site
2012.09 - 2016.06
B.Sc.
Mechanical Engineering and Automation (Control Technology & Micro Control Technology)
China University of Petroleum (East China)
Advisor: Prof. Leilei Gao
Mechanical Engineering and Automation (Control Technology & Micro Control Technology)
China University of Petroleum (East China)
Advisor: Prof. Leilei Gao
📚 Referee for Journals and Conferences
- Since 2024, IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems
- Since 2024, SoftwareX
- Since 2024, Scientific Reports
- Since 2023, Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence
- Since 2022, Mathematical Biosciences and Engineering
- 2025 23rd European Control Conference (ECC)
- Transportation Research Board (TRB) Annual Meeting, Paper Reviewer for: AED30 Standing Committee on Information Systems and Technology and AED50 Standing Committee on Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Computing Application
💻 Teaching
- Theoretical Multivariate Statistics (Master)
- Applied Multivariate Statistics (Master)
- Data-Driven Multivariate Statistics (Master)