IML Students Present Additive Manufacturing and ADAS Research at ASME DRIVN 2026
Sep 17, 2026
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1 min read
IML students presented their research at the ASME DRIVN 2026 Global Transportation and Power Systems Summit.
Undergraduate student Uzair Aziz Muhammad presented a slicing and UV light control algorithm for multi-axis digital light processing (DLP) 3D printing. The approach reduced support structures by 97% in the reported study.
Master’s student Manognya Lokesh Reddy presented a method for estimating distance from a single image using license plate information, with applications in advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). This research also helped Manognya secure a summer internship at Magna International.
IML thanks ASME for the opportunity to share this work and connect with researchers and industry partners for future collaboration.
Authors
Zheng Liu
Assistant Professor
Zheng Liu is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. He obtained his Ph.D. from the Department of Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2025. He received his M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell University in 2019. His research bridges theoretical and applied aspects of AI in manufacturing and energy systems. He focused on physics-based modeling, physics-informed machine learning, and generative design for manufacturing and energy storage applications. He also evaluated the manufacturing processes through life cycle assessment and techno-economic analysis, helping the team win $1M Department of Energy’s (DOE) inaugural American-Made Geothermal Lithium Extraction Prize. He has collaborated on multiple projects funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) through the Future Manufacturing Research Grant (FMRG) program, as well as the Office of Naval Research (ONR). He also won the prestigious Prof. Avram Bar-Cohen Best Paper Award in the Data Centers Thermal Management track at 2026 IEEE ITherm. In addition, he served as a graduate fellow and STEM outreach coordinator at the NSF Engineering Research Center for Power Optimization for Electro-Thermal Systems (POETS). Zheng has received the Sharp Outstanding Graduate Student Award and the Tau Beta Pi Outstanding Graduate Student Award in recognition of his research contributions. He has published more than 20 peer-reviewed journal articles and 20 conference proceedings, and has served as the publication co-chair for the IEEE Transportation Electrification Conference. Through his work, he continues to push the frontiers of AI-driven innovation in manufacturing and energy systems.