Waleed Raza

Research Focus

Advanced Air Mobility & UAS Integration

Route optimization and airspace network design for AAM operations
Flight-recorder requirements for UAS and remotely piloted UAM aircraft
FAA guidance and industry-standards analysis for safe automation and certification
Vision-based detect-and-avoid for urban air mobility
UAS/eVTOL noise prediction and mitigation; AAM demand modeling

Signal Processing & Communications

Underwater acoustic OFDM communications and system reliability
Machine-learning methods for PAPR reduction and nonlinear-distortion removal
Doppler compensation, wavelet-based techniques, matrix pencil algorithm
Geospatial and trajectory analysis, statistical and scientific visualization

Education

Ph.D., Electrical Engineering & Computer Science

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Daytona Beach, FL

AUG 2022 - JUL 2026 · GPA 4.0

Dissertation: "Noise-Optimized Routes for Air Taxi" — Committee Chair: Richard S. Stansbury
Coursework: Artificial Intelligence, Scientific Visualization, Data-Driven Modeling, System Safety and Certification, UAV Cybersecurity, Probability & Statistics

M.Eng., Underwater Acoustics Engineering

Harbin Engineering University, Harbin, China

SEP 2018 - MAR 2021 · GPA 3.86

Thesis: PAPR Reduction with Nonlinear Distortion Removal in Underwater Acoustic OFDM Communication Systems

B.Eng., Electronic Engineering

Dawood University of Engineering and Technology, Karachi, Pakistan

JAN 2013 - DEC 2016

Research & Industry Experience

Graduate Research Assistant

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Daytona Beach, FL

AUG 2022 - PRESENT

Contributed to ASSURE Project A55 on flight-recorder requirements for UAS integration into the U.S. National Airspace System
Contributed to ASSURE Project A64 evaluating AAM/UAM technologies, automation concepts, safety considerations, and system architectures
Reviewed FAA guidance and industry standards to support research on safe automation and functional concepts
Conducted AAM research covering airspace operations, routing, automation, trajectory analysis, and system-level integration
Produced technical writing and analysis on aviation safety, flight data recorders, UAS/eVTOL noise, AAM demand, and detect-and-avoid

Graduate Research Assistant (Master's Student)

Harbin Engineering University, Harbin, China

SEP 2018 - MAR 2021

Researched underwater acoustic OFDM communications, reliability, nonlinear distortion removal, and Doppler compensation
Developed machine-learning and signal-processing methods for communication-system analysis, contributing to peer-reviewed publications

Assistant Engineer / Electrical Supervisor

K-Electric (MM Associates Pvt. Ltd.), Karachi, Pakistan

JUL 2016 - SEP 2018

Performed three-phase electrical testing, load distribution, and phase balancing across pole-mounted transformers
Diagnosed voltage issues in low-tension systems and located underground cable faults
Supported feeder-tripping normalization, service restoration, and 11 kV network operations

Engineering Intern

KNSTEL, Lahore, Pakistan

JUN - JUL 2015

Supported 3G network rollout for Telenor and Mobilink projects, including Huawei equipment installation and commissioning

Engineering Intern

WAPDA Hydel Training Center, Mangla, Pakistan

JUL - AUG 2014

Trained at the Mangla Power Station and 600 MW grid station on hydroelectric generation, turbines, transformers, and grid operations

Selected Publications

Journal Articles

2026 Kamal Acharya, Waleed Raza, Katherine Vasiloff, Zhenbo Wang, Liang Sun, Houbing Herbert Song. "Demand Modeling for Advanced Air Mobility: Challenges, Opportunities, and Future Directions." IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, vol. 27, pp. 7454-7474. DOI
2025 Waleed Raza, Richard S. Stansbury. "Noise Prediction and Mitigation for UAS and eVTOL Aircraft: A Survey." Drones, vol. 9. DOI
2025 Waleed Raza, Justus Renkhoff, Olayemi Ogirimah, Gurvir Kaur Bawa, Richard S. Stansbury. "Advanced Air Mobility: Innovations, Applications, Challenges, and Future Potential." Journal of Air Transportation, AIAA, pp. 1-18. DOI
2023 Waleed Raza, Justus Renkhoff, Olayemi Ogirimah, Richard S. Stansbury, Houbing Song. "Flight Data Recorders: Past, Present, and Future." IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine, pp. 1-21. DOI
● Best of Session Paper Award, 43rd DASC, 2024
2023 Waleed Raza, Xuefei Ma, Houbing Song, Amir Ali, Habib Zubairi, Kamal Acharya. "Long Short-Term Memory Neural Network Assisted Peak to Average Power Ratio Reduction for Underwater Acoustic OFDM Communication." KSII Transactions on Internet & Information Systems, vol. 17.
2023 Kamal Acharya, Waleed Raza, Carlos Dourado, Alvaro Velasquez, Houbing Herbert Song. "Neurosymbolic Reinforcement Learning and Planning: A Survey." IEEE Transactions on Artificial Intelligence, vol. 1, pp. 1-14.
2021 Waleed Raza, Xuefei Ma, Amir Ali, A. Raza, S. Shaikh. "Performance Analysis of Selective Mapping in Underwater Acoustic OFDM Communication System." Engineering, Technology & Applied Science Research, vol. 11, pp. 6696-6702.
2020 Waleed Raza, Xuefei Ma, Amir Ali, Zubair Ali Shah, Ghazanfar Mehdi. "An Implementation of Partial Transmit Sequences to Design Energy Efficient Underwater Acoustic OFDM Communication System." arXiv preprint arXiv:2007.01273.
2020 Xuefei Ma, Waleed Raza, Zhiqiang Wu, Muhammad Bilal, Ziqi Zhou, Amir Ali. "A Nonlinear Distortion Removal Based on Deep Neural Network for Underwater Acoustic OFDM Communication with the Mitigation of Peak to Average Power Ratio." Applied Sciences, vol. 10, p. 4986, MDPI.

Conference Proceedings

2026 Waleed Raza, Richard S. Stansbury, Kanchon Gharami. "A Comparative Study of Vision-Based Detect and Avoid for Urban Air Mobility." AIAA SciTech 2026 Forum, Orlando, FL. AIAA 2026-0465. doi.org/10.2514/6.2026-0465 · project page →
2021 Waleed Raza, Xuefei Ma, Muhammad Bilal. "Long Short-Term Memory Neural Network Assisted Peak to Average Power Ratio Reduction for Underwater Acoustic OFDM Communication." Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, vol. 150, pp. A319.
2019 Waleed Raza, Xuefei Ma, Tingting Wang, Muhammad Bilal. "Low Complexity Energy Efficient OFDM Communication System over Underwater Acoustic Channel by Partial Transmit Sequence PAPR Reduction." Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, vol. 146, pp. 2764-2765.

Full list on Google Scholar · ResearchGate

Awards, Honors & Fellowships

Best of Session Paper Award, 43rd Digital Avionics Systems Conference (DASC), San Diego, CA, 2024, for "Identify Flight Recorder Requirements for UAS Integration Into the National Airspace System"
International Student Role Model, Harbin Engineering University, Nov 2022 (read the feature)
Featured in Xinhua News Agency, Feb 2020 - profiled in "We Are All Safe in China: The Pandemic-Prevention Life of Three Foreign Nationals," covering international students and professionals in China during the early COVID-19 outbreak (read the feature)
ANSO Scholarship for Young Talents, Alliance of International Science Organizations, 2021
China Scholarship Council award (Ministry of Commerce, PRC) for M.Eng. study and research at Harbin Engineering University, 2018-2021
Meritorious Honor Award, Harbin Engineering University, 2020
HEU Travel Grant, Harbin Engineering University, 2019

Professional Service & Skills

Technical Reviewer (Invited)

Springer Nature: Wireless Personal Communications, Computers and Electrical Engineering, The Journal of Supercomputing, AEU - Int'l Journal of Electronics and Communications, Scientific Reports
IEEE: IEEE Sensors Journal
MDPI: Journal of Marine Science and Engineering, Remote Sensing, Ocean, Applied Sciences, Water
ETASR and IWCMC (invited, 2023)

Affiliations & Roles

Editorial Board Member, Engineering, Technology & Applied Science Research (ETASR), Greece - since 2021
IEEE Graduate Student Member, IEEE Daytona Beach Section - since December 2022
Registered Engineer, Pakistan Engineering Council - since 2017

Peer Review Service

52 reviews across 11 publications/grants (per ORCID record)

J. Marine Science & Eng. (17) Remote Sensing (14) IEEE Sensors Journal (4) Sensors (3) Electronics (3) Information (3) Applied Sciences (2) Computers & Electrical Eng. (2) Oceans (2) IEEE Access (1) IEEE Internet of Things J. (1)

Programming & Tools

PythonMATLABLaTeX PyTorchUltralytics YOLOOpenCV NumPy / SciPy / PandasJupyterLinux / Ubuntu

Geospatial & Optimization

GeoPandasQGISArcGIS NetworkXPyomoHiGHS

Research Methods

Route OptimizationTrajectory Analysis Signal ProcessingMachine Learning SimulationStatistical Analysis