Sudip Dhakal's Profile

Dhakal, Sudip (PhD)

Assistant Professor, Software Engineering

Department of Computing & Software Engineering

Dr. Sudip Dhakal is an Assistant Professor of Computing and Software Engineering at Florida Gulf Coast University. His research and teaching span across computer science, software engineering, and cybersecurity, with a particular focus on autonomous driving systems and self-driving vehicle technologies. Dr. Dhakal’s work has been published in leading journals and presented at top-tier conferences in the fields of intelligent transportation systems, computer vision, and cybersecurity. In the classroom, he is passionate about bridging theory and practice, integrating his cutting-edge research into hands-on, project-based learning experiences that prepare students to solve real-world technological challenges.

Education
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- Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering, University of North Texas
- M.S. in Computer Science, University of North Texas
- B.S. in Software Engineering, Pkhara University (Nepal)
Specialties
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- Self-driving vehicles
- Autonomous driving systems
Research and Teaching Interests
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Dr. Dhakal’s research focuses on object detection, cooperative perception, and security in autonomous driving systems, as well as data privacy and risk analysis in emerging technologies. He incorporates his research into teaching by engaging students in applied projects, such as developing secure software applications, implementing AI-driven perception models, and analyzing security risks in connected systems.
Courses Offered
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- Software Engineering Fundamentals
- Programming I
- Introduction to Computer Security
- Secure Software Development
Publications
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1. **Dhakal, S., Qu, D., Carrillo, D., Yang, Q., & Fu, S.** "OASD: An Open Approach to Self-Driving Vehicle." *2021 Fourth International Conference on Connected and Autonomous Driving (MetroCAD)*, pp. 54–61, 2021. doi: [10.1109/MetroCAD51599.2021.00017](https://doi.org/10.1109/MetroCAD51599.2021.00017)
2. **Dhakal, S., Chen, Q., Qu, D., Carrillo, D., Yang, Q., & Fu, S.** "Sniffer Faster R-CNN: A Joint Camera-LiDAR Object Detection Framework with Proposal Refinement." *2023 IEEE International Conference on Mobility, Operations, Services and Technologies (MOST)*, pp. 1–10, 2023. doi: [10.1109/MOST57249.2023.00009](https://doi.org/10.1109/MOST57249.2023.00009)
3. **Dhakal, S., Carrillo, D., Qu, D., Yang, Q., & Fu, S.** "Sniffer Faster R-CNN++: An Efficient Camera-LiDAR Object Detector with Proposal Refinement on Fused Candidates." *ACM Journal on Autonomous Transportation Systems*, Just Accepted (October 2023). doi: [10.1145/3631138](https://doi.org/10.1145/3631138)
4. **Qu, D., Carrillo, D., Dhakal, S., Tezerjani, M. D., Qiu, C., & Yang, Q.** "Location Privacy Protection and 911 Task Allocation in Vehicle-Based via Differential Privacy." *2024 IEEE 100th Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC2024-Fall)*, pp. 1–5, 2024. doi: [10.1109/VTC2024-Fall63153.2024.10757598](https://doi.org/10.1109/VTC2024-Fall63153.2024.10757598)
5. **Dhakal, S., Qu, D., Carrillo, D., Tezerjani, M. D., & Yang, Q.** "VirtualPainting: Addressing Sparsity with Virtual Points and Distance-Aware Data Augmentation for 3D Object Detection." *Sensors*, 25(11), 3367, 2025. doi: [10.3390/s25113367](https://doi.org/10.3390/s25113367)
6. **Tezerjani, M. D., Qu, D., Dhakal, S.** "Real-Time Motion Planning for Autonomous Vehicles in Dynamic Environments." In *Communications in Computer and Information Science (CCIS), Vol. 2258*, Springer, Cham, 2025, pp. 134–148. doi: [10.1007/978-3-031-85092-1\_14](https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-85092-1_14)
7. **Dhakal, S.** "Survey of Graph Databases and Current Challenges in Handling Their Design and Computation." *IEEE COMSOC MMTC Communications – Frontiers*, March 2021. [Link](https://mmc.committees.comsoc.org/files/2021/12/MMTC-March-2021.pdf#page=16)
8. **Qu, D., Dhakal, S., & Carrillo, D.** "Facial Emotion Recognition using CNN in PyTorch." *arXiv preprint*, arXiv:2312.10818, 2023. [Link](https://arxiv.org/abs/2312.10818)
9. **Paz, I. A. W., Balan, A., Campos, S., Orenstain, E., & Dhakal, S.** "Risk Assessment and Threat Modeling for Safe Autonomous Driving Technology." *arXiv preprint*, arXiv:2505.02231, 2025. [Link](https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.02231)

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Dhakal, Sudip (PhD)

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