UMBC Mohammad Saeid Anwar

Introduction


I am a 5th-year PhD candidate in Information Systems at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, a member of MPSC Lab and supervised by Prof. Nirmalya Roy. My research focuses on resource-aware real-time collaborative task execution for improved perception in heterogeneous autonomous systems.

My core research interests lie in Computer Vision, Edge Distributed Computing, and ROS-based autonomous systems. I have 4+ years of experience in designing scalable AI/ML solutions for real-time perception, multimodal sensor fusion, and task allocation in heterogeneous autonomous systems (UAVs & UGVs).

In my most recent work, I'm exploring the integration of Vision-Language Models (VLMs) into autonomous ground vehicles for enhanced situational awareness and adaptive decision-making in complex urban environments. I'm also working on improving 3D perception by fusing RGB, Lidar data to enhance detection accuracy and segmentation precision in dynamic, unstructured environments.

News


03/2026Paper titled "COHORT: Hybrid RL for Collaborative Large DNN Inference on Multi-Robot Systems Under Real-Time Constraints" accepted at IEEE WoWMoM 2026!
03/2026Paper titled "CAViAR: Quality-Aware Vision-and-Radio Fusion for Relative Range Estimation among Collaborative Autonomous Agents" accepted at IEEE WoWMoM 2026!
11/2025Paper titled "Imitation-Inspired Semantic-Guided Distillation for User-Conditioned Memorability Prediction" accepted at IEEE ICDM 2025.
06/2025Paper titled "CoOpTex: Multimodal Cooperative Perception and Task Execution in Time-critical Distributed Autonomous Systems" accepted at DCOSS-IoT 2025.
05/2025Paper titled "SkillNet: Human Actions Assessment via Human-AI Collaboration" accepted at ACM TOMM 2025.
03/2024Paper titled "Arsfinetune: On-the-fly Tuning of Vision Models for Unmanned Ground Vehicles" accepted at DCOSS-IoT 2024. Congratulations to all co-authors!
07/2023Paper titled "A Novel ROS2 QoS Policy-Enabled Synchronizing Middleware for Co-Simulation of Heterogeneous Multi-Robot Systems" accepted at ICCCN 2023.
10/2023Paper titled "HeteroEdge: Addressing Asymmetry in Heterogeneous Collaborative Autonomous Systems" accepted at IEEE MASS 2023.

Selected Publications


  • IEEE WoWMoM'26 M. S. Anwar et al. "COHORT: Hybrid RL for Collaborative Large DNN Inference on Multi-Robot Systems Under Real-Time Constraints," In Proc. of IEEE WoWMoM, 2026.
    📊 Add figure:
    images/cohort.png
    Abstract

    Add your abstract here.

  • IEEE WoWMoM'26 Gaurav Shinde, Anuradha Ravi, Jared Lewis, Andre Harrison, Henry Gardiner, M. S. Anwar et al. "CAViAR: Quality-Aware Vision-and-Radio Fusion for Relative Range Estimation among Collaborative Autonomous Agents," In Proc. of IEEE WoWMoM, 2026.
    📊 Add figure:
    images/caviar.png
    Abstract

    Add your abstract here.

  • IEEE ICDM'25 I. Ghosh, M. S. Anwar, K. Jayarajah, and N. Roy, "Imitation-Inspired Semantic-Guided Distillation for User-Conditioned Memorability Prediction," In Proc. of the 25th IEEE International Conference on Data Mining, 2025.
    📊 Add figure:
    images/icdm25.png
    Abstract

    Add your abstract here.

  • DCOSS-IoT'25 M. S. Anwar et al. "CoOpTex: Multimodal Cooperative Perception and Task Execution in Time-critical Distributed Autonomous Systems," In Proc. of DCOSS-IoT, 2025.
    📊 Add figure:
    images/cooptex.png
    Abstract

    Add your abstract here.

  • ACM TOMM'25 I. Ghosh, Avijoy Chakma, M. S. Anwar et al. "SkillNet: Human Actions Assessment via Human-AI Collaboration," ACM Transactions on Multimedia Computing, Communications, and Applications, 2025.
    📊 Add figure:
    images/skillnet.png
    Abstract

    Add your abstract here.

  • Under Review M. S. Anwar et al. "SERN: Simulation-Enhanced Realistic Navigation for Multi-Agent Robotic Systems in Contested Environments."
    📊 Add figure:
    images/sern.png
    Abstract

    Add your abstract here.

  • Under Review M. S. Anwar et al. "MobHeteroCAS: Mobility-Aware DNN Task Scheduling in Heterogeneous Collaborative Autonomous Systems," ACM TAAS Journal, 2024.
    📊 Add figure:
    images/mobhetero.png
    Abstract

    Add your abstract here.

  • DCOSS-IoT'24 Ahmed, M., Hasan, Z., Faridee, A. Z. M., Anwar, M. S., Jayarajah, K., Purushotham, S., ... & Roy, N., "Arsfinetune: On-the-fly Tuning of Vision Models for Unmanned Ground Vehicles," Proc. of DCOSS-IoT, 2024.
    📊 Add figure:
    images/arsfinetune.png
    Abstract

    Add your abstract here.

  • ICCCN'23 Emon Dey, Mikolaj Walczak, M. S. Anwar et al. "A Novel ROS2 QoS Policy-Enabled Synchronizing Middleware for Co-Simulation of Heterogeneous Multi-Robot Systems," In Proc. of ICCCN, 2024.
    📊 Add figure:
    images/icccn24.png
    Abstract

    Add your abstract here.

  • IEEE MASS'23 M. S. Anwar, E. Dey, M. Devnath, I. Ghosh, N. Khan, J. Freeman, T. Gregory, N. Suri, K. Jayarajah, S. Ramamurthy, N. Roy, "HeteroEdge: Addressing Asymmetry in Heterogeneous Collaborative Autonomous Systems," In Proc. of IEEE MASS, 2023.
    📊 Add figure:
    images/heteroedge.png
    Abstract

    Add your abstract here.

  • IEEE EICT'19 NB Noor, M. S. Anwar et al. "An Efficient Technique of Hemoglobin Level Screening Using Machine Learning Algorithms," IEEE EICT, 2019.
    📊 Add figure:
    images/eict19.png
    Abstract

    Add your abstract here.

  • BECITHCON'19 NB Noor, M. S. Anwar et al. "Comparative Study Between Decision Tree, SVM and KNN to Predict Anaemic Condition," IEEE BECITHCON, 2019.
    📊 Add figure:
    images/becithcon19.png
    Abstract

    Add your abstract here.

All Publications »

Skills


Languages

PythonMATLABCR

ML / AI

PyTorchTensorFlowKerasScikit-learnGen AI (GAN, VAE, Diffusion)LLMImage SegmentationDistributed Training

Robotics & Hardware

ROS1 / ROS2Jetson NanoJetson XavierRaspberry PiIntel NCS2ArduinoClearpath JackalHusky A300Boston Dynamics SPOTModal AI Drone

Tools & Simulation

Linux SystemIsaac SimGazeboUnitySimulinkTableau

Experience


Graduate Research Assistant

Jan 2022 – Present
University of Maryland, Baltimore County, MD, USA

Developing frameworks for efficient UAV-UGV collaboration, optimizing task distribution and reducing communication overhead. Improving 3D perception by fusing RGB, LiDAR, and radar data. Integrating Vision-Language Models (VLMs) into autonomous ground vehicles for enhanced situational awareness.

Graduate Teaching Assistant

Jan 2022 – Dec 2023
University of Maryland, Baltimore County, MD, USA

IS-603 (Decision-making Support System), IS-425 (Decision Support System), IS-733 (Data Mining).

Education


Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Information Systems

Jan 2022 – Present
University of Maryland, Baltimore County

PhD Topic: Resource-Aware Real-Time Collaborative Task Execution for Improved Perception In Heterogeneous Autonomous Systems
Advisor: Dr. Nirmalya Roy

Blog & News


  • 2026 · Research Update

    Two papers Accepted at IEEE WoWMoM 2026

    First Authored COHORT and Co-authored CAViER have been accepted. We recently introduced COHORT, a ROS-based framework enabling heterogeneous robot teams to collaboratively execute large Vision-Language Models with real-time, energy-aware optimization. In parallel, our work on CAViAR presents a quality-aware multimodal fusion approach for robust relative distance estimation in GPS-denied environments

  • 2025 · Research Update

    Three Papers Published in 2025

    Exciting year with publications at ICDM, DCOSS-IoT, and ACM TOMM covering distillation, cooperative perception, and human action assessment.

  • 2025 · Project Spotlight

    VLMs Meet Autonomous Ground Vehicles

    Ongoing research integrating Vision-Language Models into UGVs for human-like reasoning in complex urban environments.