Raj Rajkumar

George Westinghouse Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering

Ragunathan (Raj) Rajkumar is the George Westinghouse Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. Rajkumar serves as director of the Metro21: Smart Cities Institute, USDOT Mobility21 National University Transportation Center, USDOT T-SET National University Transportation Center, Real-Time and Multimedia Systems Lab, and co-director of the General Motors-Carnegie Mellon Connected and Autonomous Driving Collaborative Research Lab (CAD-CRL).

Rajkumar's research interests lie in all aspects of embedded real-time systems and wireless/sensor networks. In the domain of embedded real-time systems, his interests include but are not limited to operating systems, scheduling theory, resource management, wired/wireless networking protocols, quality of service management, hardware/software architecture, model-based design tools and power management. In the context of wireless/sensor networks, his research interests span hardware, devices, power-efficient networking protocols, run-time environments, large-scale system architectures, visualization and administrative tools.

Rajkumar has received multiple awards, including the Carnegie Science Award in Information Technology, the Steven J. Fenves Award for Systems Research from the Carnegie Institute of Technology, and the Outstanding Technical Achievement and Leadership Award from the IEEE Technical Committee on Real-Time Stystems. He has been named a Fellow of the Institute of Electric and Electronics Engineers and a Distinguished Engineer by the Association for Computing Machinery. He has received multiple best paper awards, spoken at various conferences and events, been a member or chair of professional committees and conferences, and consulted for several companies. Rajkumar is a member of the editorial board of Real-Time Systems Journal and previously served on the editorial board of IEEE Transactions on Image Processing.

Office: 2309 Collaborative Innovation Center

Phone: 412-268-8707

Fax: 412-268-3890

Email: raj@ece.cmu.edu

Google Scholar: Raj Rajkumar

Driverless Vehicles

Education

1989 Ph.D., Computer Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University

1986 MS, Computer Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University

1984 Bachelor of Engineering (Hons), Electronics and Communications Engineering, University of Madras

Affiliations

Research Interests

Media mentions

Business Insider

Rajkumar shares his thoughts on the new Tesla Cybertruck

ECE’s Raj Rajkumar shares his thoughts on the new Tesla Cybertruck with Business Insider. He says that the material it is made of does not provide as much flexibility, which is critical for vehicle accidents and will require special welding techniques.

CMU Engineering

USDOT Deputy Secretary meets CMU transportation researchers

Carnegie Mellon is working closely with the USDOT to transform the U.S. transportation system through research that focuses on safety, economic growth, climate and sustainability, and equity.

WIRED

Rajkumar comments on Tesla’s Cybertruck design in WIRED

ECE’s Raj Rajkumar comments on Tesla’s Cybertruck design in WIRED. Its stainless steel alloy composition makes it “look as if it’s the output of a student in an in-class ‘Pop Quiz Number 1’ for the course ‘Intro to Car Design,’” he says.

CMU Engineering

Carnegie Mellon awarded $20M for transportation research

Congresswoman Summer Lee and U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) announce that CMU will lead consortium that will receive $20 million to create Safety21, a University Transportation Center.

See More Mentions

Reuters

Rajkumar quoted on Tesla ruling

ECE’s Raj Rajkumar spoke with Reuters about where Tesla stands in light of a recent verdict that found the automaker wasn’t liable for a crash that had occurred while using Autopilot, its driver-assistant system. “While Tesla won the battle, they may end up losing the war,” Rajkumar said, because the car designs are “far from becoming fully autonomous.”

The New York Times

Rajkumar comments on Tesla’s stainless steel Cybertruck

ECE’s Raj Rajkumar comments on Tesla’s newest invention: a stainless steel Cybertruck. “Tesla thinks they can solve any problem and don’t have to learn from anyone else,” Rajkumar argues. “And then they get stuck in a corner.”

Time

Rajkumar talks Tesla recalls, autonomous vehicle safety

ECE’s Raj Rajkumar spoke with Time about possible safety concerns with self-driving cars amid a recall of more than 300,000 such Tesla models, which prompted the automaker to announce a software update. “These are not straightforward issues to fix,” Rajkumar said. “If they could have fixed it, they would have fixed it a long time back.”

The Verge