I build systems that fly, sense and score themselves.
Assistant Professor and Head of Information Systems Engineering at Near East University, with an electrical-engineering background. I build UAV competition simulators on real autopilots, passive radar from SDR and FPGA hardware, and research NOMA / MIMO wireless links.
Virtual UAV Engagement Arena
Flagship project · 2026
A virtual Fighting UAV competition, run on real ArduPilot autopilots.
A competition platform for fixed-wing UAV teams, modelled on the TEKNOFEST Fighting UAV format. Teams score by holding an opponent in their camera's hit zone, finishing a QR dive task, avoiding penalties and landing safely. Every aircraft is a real ArduPlane SITL autopilot, flown by the team's own code or by hand from a 3D browser cockpit, and an automatic referee scores every match from ground truth. Guests watch in 3D from one link.
Open the live Arena · uavarena.github.io ↗
- Referee engine: lock-on validation (≥ 4 s window, ≥ 90 % in-zone, no gap > 0.3 s), geofence, telemetry watchdog, false-claim and collision penalties, warn / freeze / eject.
- Four rulebooks: standard, TEKNOFEST mode, a defence scenario, and a standalone league.
- League mode: fog of war, ground radar, hidden SAM sites, GPS and comms jamming, on-board ECM, and an unattended season runner that publishes standings and 3D replays.
- Per-aircraft camera images streamed to each team, with recorded evidence clips for every lock-on review.
- Fair play: per-team tokens, rate limits, server-side time, and an isolated MAVLink port for each team.
- Multi-autopilot: ArduPilot and PX4 airframes, homologated before a match, spread across several computers.
| # | Setup | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Two identical hunters | Collided at 23.7 s, both out |
| 3 | Hunter vs patrol, 10 min | 11 valid locks; final score 135 – 3 |
| 4 | Fly-out vs false-claim team | Ejected after 30 s / after 5 false claims |
| 5 | Telemetry dropped at 60 s | Warned at 5 s, ejected at 30 s |
| 6 | ArduPlane SITL, 3 runs | Valid locks every run; staggered landings fixed approach collisions |
The first merge is the most dangerous moment
With identical code, both aircraft pointed at each other within 20 s of take-off. Teams need a deconfliction rule before they need a lock-on algorithm.
Equal aircraft circle forever
Points come from asymmetry: slowing down to out-turn (ω = g·tan φ / V), using altitude, or extending and re-engaging.
Evasion is worth as much as attack
A predictable target gave up 11 locks in 10 minutes. Being locked costs −2, against +10 for the attacker.
Experience
16 years across academia, industry and teaching
- Sep 2025 – Present1 yr 3 mosNEUAcademia
Head of Information Systems Engineering Department
Near East University · Nicosia- Leading the department, and part of the effort to establish the new Faculty of AI and Informatics.
- First appointed to the Data Analytics Department (Feb 2025), then moved to Information Systems to match my focus on AI applications, robotics and systems.
- Sep 2024 – Present2 yrs 3 mosNEUAcademia
Assistant Professor
Near East University · Nicosia- Mentor real-world student projects in AI and software engineering, such as AI for cybersecurity, a calorie-counting app and an AI chess game.
- Research the mathematical analysis of modulation and multiple access: 64-QAM, NOMA, OTFS and Massive MIMO.
- Teach students to apply generative AI to robotics, logic design, speech processing and software testing.
- Jul 2023 – Oct 20241 yr 4 mosRLIndustry
Head of Software Engineering
RoboLabs · Istanbul- Led firmware for the robot subsystems (ESP) and the main controllers (NVIDIA Jetson).
- Owned the software architecture and system design, managed the team's workload, and coordinated with the hardware and other departments.
- Sep 2023 – Aug 20241 yrNEUAcademia
Lecturer
Near East University · Nicosia- Taught programming, object-oriented programming, algorithms, and AI agents and reasoning in the AI Engineering Department and the AI and Robotics Institute.
- Taught software requirements to graduate students, and researched AI for wireless communications, signal processing, robotics and financial markets.
- Jul 2022 – Jun 20231 yrRLIndustry
Software Engineer
RoboLabs · Istanbul- Built the control software for C-bot UV-C disinfection robots, with autonomous, manual, timed and QR-following modes.
- Worked across the battery, UV-C and motion subsystems, and fixed control and communication design problems.
- Mar 2022 – Present4 yrs 9 mosCKTeaching
Online Lecturer
Course Khana · Istanbul · remote- Teach undergraduate electrical, electronic and computer engineering: Electronics I and II, Signal Processing, Wireless Communications, Digital System Design and Communication Circuits.
- Run live classes on Zoom with digital whiteboards.
- Sep 2021 – Oct 20221 yr 2 mosOXIndustry
Co-founder & Quantitative Developer
Oxyinance Technologies · Istanbul- Built automated trading systems for stocks, FX and crypto, driven by mathematical and AI models.
- Designed fundamental and technical strategies and implemented them in Python, C/C++ and MATLAB.
- Feb 2019 – Aug 20212 yrs 7 mosNEUAcademia
Research Assistant
Near East University · Nicosia- Taught undergraduate courses and labs in electronics, AI, signal processing and computer vision.
- Researched array signal processing, DOA estimation, NOMA and MIMO, publishing in IEEE and Springer venues.
- Reviewed MSc and PhD theses, and built the university's official LaTeX thesis template.
- Jul 2015 – Aug 20152 mosQAEarly career
Electrical Engineer
Construction project · Doha, Qatar- Managed the electrical works from civil and electrical drawings, supervising three teams of workers.
- Jul 2010 – Feb 20118 mosSYEarly career
Web Designer & ICDL Examiner
Synergy Sohag Center · Sohag, Egypt- Designed and built the websites of a training centre for business development, Microsoft Office and programming.
- Official ICDL examiner under a Ministry of Education contract.
Certificates
- 2025AI Product ManagerIBM
- 2025AI Product ManagerMicrosoft
- 2025FPGA Softcore Processors and IP AcquisitionUniversity of Colorado Boulder
- 2025Hardware Description Languages for FPGA DesignUniversity of Colorado Boulder
- 2024Google AI EssentialsGoogle
- 2023ROS 2 Nav2 with SLAM and NavigationUdemy
- 2023ROS 2 for Beginners (Foxy, Humble)Udemy
Skills
Languages
- Arabic · native
- English · fluent
- Turkish · elementary
More projects
Hardware, signals and software
Passive FM radar (PCL)
researchA passive coherent location system that detects aircraft using FM broadcast stations as illuminators. It uses RTL-SDR receivers, a DE10-Lite FPGA, cross-ambiguity processing with direct-path cancellation in Python, and ADS-B ground truth for validation. Next step: a coherent multi-channel array.
QR Lab
liveScreen-to-camera communication between phones: fountain-coded file transfer, colour and spatial multiplexing, a NOMA-style layered broadcast with SIC, encrypted per-group quizzes, and end-to-end encrypted QR chat (ECDH + AES-GCM). It also ships as an offline Android app, and was field-tested with 20+ students.
MDANetwork
prototypeA true peer-to-peer networking and chat system: nodes talk directly, with no central relay, across different networks. It runs on desktop and web, and a native Kotlin Android client is planned.
FlyDetectandTrack
visionLive insect tracking with persistent IDs, using OpenCV detection, a Kalman filter per track and Hungarian assignment on IoU. It draws fading motion trails and a live HUD.
FPGA NPU (DE10-Lite)
in designAn educational INT8 systolic-array accelerator on a MAX 10 FPGA with a Nios V soft core, benchmarking quantised LeNet/MNIST inference against software.
HomecareBot
botA Telegram assistant that supports patients recovering at home after open-heart surgery, with symptom-monitoring alerts and care guidance.
Research
Signal processing · DOA estimation · Massive MIMO · NOMA · 5G scheduling
Precoding Design for Massive MIMO Channels with Imperfect CSI Based on Supervised Dimension Reduction Method
A. Abdelbari, B. Bilgehan · International Journal of Communication Systems, vol. 38, e70223
doi:10.1002/dac.70223PESO: Probabilistic Evaluation of Subspaces Orthogonality for Wideband DOA Estimation
A. Abdelbari, B. Bilgehan · Multidimensional Systems and Signal Processing
doi:10.1007/s11045-020-00757-6A Probabilistic-Based Approach for DOA Estimation and Localization of Multiple Sources
A. Abdelbari, B. Bilgehan · International Journal of Communication Systems, vol. 33, e4425
doi:10.1002/dac.4425Throughput Enhanced Scheduling (TES) Scheme for Ultra-Dense Networks
H. Haci, A. Abdelbari · International Journal of Communication Systems, vol. 33, e4229
doi:10.1002/dac.4229Fast Detection and DOA Estimation of the Unknown Wideband Signal Sources
B. Bilgehan, A. Abdelbari · International Journal of Communication Systems, vol. 32, e3968
doi:10.1002/dac.3968MDA: Multiple Decentralized Anchors for Hiding Communication Information
A. Abdelbari · ISMSIT 2022, Ankara (IEEE)
doi:10.1109/ISMSIT56059.2022.9932770A Novel Precoding Design for Frequency-Selective Massive MIMO Channel
A. Abdelbari, B. Bilgehan · AIoTCs 2022, Nicosia (IEEE), pp. 29–32
doi:10.1109/AIoTCs58181.2022.00012A Novel DOA Estimation Method of Several Sources for 5G Networks
A. Abdelbari, B. Bilgehan · ICECCE 2020, Istanbul (IEEE)
doi:10.1109/ICECCE49384.2020.9179306Estimation of Global Solar Radiation Using Back Propagation Neural Network: A Case Study Tripoli, Libya
N. Naser, A. Abdelbari · ICECCE 2020, Istanbul (IEEE)
doi:10.1109/ICECCE49384.2020.9179201An Opportunistic User Scheduling Scheme for Ultra-Dense Wireless Networks
A. Abdelbari, H. Haci · ELECO 2019, Bursa (IEEE), pp. 1080–1084
doi:10.23919/ELECO47770.2019.8990469Fuzzy Logic-Based User Scheduling Scheme for 5G Wireless Networks and Beyond
A. Abdelbari, H. Haci · ICSCCW 2019, Springer AISC vol. 1095
doi:10.1007/978-3-030-35249-3_55A Novel DOA Estimation Method for Wideband Sources Based on Fuzzy Systems
B. Bilgehan, A. Abdelbari · ICSCCW 2019, Springer AISC vol. 1095
doi:10.1007/978-3-030-35249-3_52A Novel Scheduling Scheme for Ultra-Dense Networks
H. Haci, A. Abdelbari · ISNCC 2019, Istanbul (IEEE)
doi:10.1109/ISNCC.2019.8909118On the Localization and Detection of Multiple Signals
PhD thesis, Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Near East University
Direction of Arrival Estimation of Wideband RF Sources
MSc thesis, Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Near East University
MIMO-NOMA power allocation and symbolic detection
With F. Al-Turjman. For IntechOpen's AI, Computer Science and Robotics Technology journal.
Probability of error for NOMA in Rayleigh fading for IoT in civil engineering
With B. Bilgehan and F. Al-Turjman.
A unified BER derivation for BPSK, 16-QAM and 64-QAM
With B. Bilgehan and F. Al-Turjman.
Distributed passive coherent location
Multi-node FM passive radar for aircraft detection: bistatic geometry, CAF processing, and ADS-B validated detection statistics.
About
Background
I'm an electrical engineer turned systems builder. I am Assistant Professor and Head of the Information Systems Engineering Department at Near East University in Nicosia, Cyprus, where I split my time between teaching, research and department leadership. Before that I was Head of Software Engineering at RoboLabs, building embedded systems and ROS 2 control architectures for autonomous robots.
My work sits where software, signals and autonomy meet: autopilot-in-the-loop simulation, radar signal processing, wireless link analysis, and tools I can put in front of a real classroom the next morning.
I'm looking for engineering roles in robotics, UAV and simulation, and defence software.
Education
- 2021 · PhD, Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Near East University
- 2018 · MSc, Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Near East University
- 2014 · BSc, Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Sohag University, Egypt
Teaching · Fall 2026
AIE401Introduction to Robotics: simulation-first robotics for 4th-year AI studentsAII452AI Applications: real-world projects for 4th-year studentsAII020System Analysis and Design: design and agile practiceAII108Object-Oriented Programming in Python—Engineering Ethics: dual-use and safety-critical case studies