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
- 2025.12 : An interview with me was published in NASW (National Association of Science Writers), where I discussed about how small robot vehicles can drive research and education innovation. The article is available here: NASW Interview.
- 2025.11 : I gave a talk at Safe Autonomy Seminar hosted by xLAB at the University of Pennsylvania, lead by Prof. Rahul Mangharam. The recording of the talk is available here: video link.
- 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
MTA-RL: Robust Urban Driving via Multi-modal Transformer-based 3D Affordances and Reinforcement Learning
Guangli Chen †, Dianzhao Li†, Wenjian Zhong, Bangquan Xie and Ostap Okhrin
Under review (IROS), 2026.
† Equal contribution
Guangli Chen †, Dianzhao Li†, Wenjian Zhong, Bangquan Xie and Ostap Okhrin
Under review (IROS), 2026.
† Equal contribution
Learning to Drive Ethically: Embedding Moral Reasoning into Autonomous Driving
Dianzhao Li*, Ostap Okhrin
Under review (IEEE TPAMI), 2025.
Dianzhao Li*, Ostap Okhrin
Under review (IEEE TPAMI), 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 2026, IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence
- 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)