Center for Environmental Research & Technology

Dr. Rui Song | Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
Dr. Walter Zimmer | Postdoctoral Researcher, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)

Time: 2:00 PM — 3:00 PM

Date: Monday, February 23, 2026

Location: Hybrid, CE-CERT & Zoom (Join Zoom Meeting; ID:  92591303450; Passcode: 606568)

Title 1: Scene Reconstruction and Synthesis for Autonomous Driving: Learning Scenes to Learn Driving

Abstract: Modern autonomous driving systems face the persistent “long-tail” challenge — the scarcity of diverse, safety-critical training data. This presentation introduces a paradigm shift toward “Learning Scenes to Learn Driving,” leveraging 3D Gaussian Splatting as a foundational representation for next-generation simulation environments. Moving beyond static reconstruction, recent advances in dynamic and controllable generative scene modeling enable the synthesis of large-scale interaction scenarios with high fidelity. By unifying reconstruction and simulation, this work establishes generative scene modeling as scalable data infrastructure for autonomous systems, supporting improved robustness, safety, and performance in open-world deployment.

Title 2: Roadside Infrastructure Intelligence

Abstract: Autonomous driving in urban environments is fundamentally constrained by limited sensing range, occlusions, and vehicle-only perception failure modes. This presentation explores cooperative roadside–vehicle perception systems that fuse multi-modal data from onboard sensors and intelligent roadside infrastructure via V2X communication. The proposed framework extends situational awareness beyond line of sight, improving real-time 3D object detection and tracking in dense traffic conditions. Supported by new large-scale, multi-modal datasets for benchmarking cooperative perception, this research integrates advances in foundation models and vision-language systems to enable semantic scene understanding. The work contributes toward AI-driven urban digital twins and safer, more efficient intelligent transportation systems.

Bio — Dr. Rui Song: Dr. Rui Song is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and a Visiting Researcher at the University of Cambridge. He received his Ph.D. from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) in collaboration with the Fraunhofer Institute, graduating summa cum laude. His research focuses on scene reconstruction for autonomy and cooperative intelligence in multi-agent systems. He has led large-scale research initiatives totaling over €15 million in funding and has received the Distinguished Contribution Award from the Fraunhofer Institute for four consecutive years (2021–2024). His work has been published in top-tier venues including CVPR, ICCV, NeurIPS, IEEE IV, and IEEE ITSC.

Bio — Dr. Walter Zimmer: Dr. Walter Zimmer is a Postdoctoral Researcher at UCLA and a guest researcher at the Technical University of Munich (TUM). He received his Ph.D. from TUM in 2025. His research focuses on cooperative autonomous driving, 3D perception, and foundation models for intelligent systems. He has authored over 40 publications in leading venues including CVPR, ICCV, ECCV, ICML, NeurIPS, and IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence (T-PAMI). His work has been recognized with the IEEE ITSS Best Student Paper Award (2023) and IEEE ITSS Best Dissertation Award (2025).