Moumita Bhowmik

Moumita Bhowmik

Self-Driving or Self-Danger?

In today’s fast-paced world, imagine grabbing your double-double at Tim Hortons and letting a driverless Tesla take you to work. Sounds exciting — but would you really trust it? Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) system includes features like automated lane changes and signal handling, yet past incidents and studies reveal serious flaws, including fatal crashes. My research tackles this gap by building a Time-To-Materialization (TTM) model to enhance safety in autonomous vehicles. While Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) offer collision warnings and lane keeping, questions remain: when is a situation truly “risky” or “dangerous”? For example, is running a red light more dangerous than suddenly switching lanes without signaling? This project dives into such questions using real-world driving data — vehicle movement, driver gaze, and object detection to predict hazardous moments. By linking risk to behavior and environment, my model aims to make smarter decisions and move us closer to truly safe, trustworthy self-driving cars.

Moumita Bhowmik
MSc candidate, Computer Science
Faculty of Science - Western University

Supervisor
Michael Bauer 

Moumita Bhowmik (she/her) is a proud Bangladeshi and first-year CS Master’s student at Western University. Inspired by Tesla’s Autopilot, she embarked on a mission to dive headfirst into the world of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) and help shape the future of autonomous driving. She is currently working on AI-driven risk assessment in driving environments using stereo vision, driver gaze tracking, and time-series vehicle sensor
data to predict and respond to potentially hazardous situations. She believes driverless cars should not just be a futuristic fantasy showcased at tech expos like the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). With the right innovation and intention, they can become a safe and reliable part of our daily lives right now.

Before shifting to intelligent transportation, Moumita worked as a Cybersecurity Analyst at Grameenphone Ltd (Telenor Group), one of the largest telecoms in the Nordic region, based in Norway. There, she protected digital infrastructure and observed firsthand how AI is transforming the communication sector. With experience in both cybersecurity and the autonomous field, Moumita has witnessed how AI is reshaping our world—from online protection to real-world mobility. She is dedicating her efforts to AI research aimed at building a smarter future with AI that drives, AI that defends.

You can connect with Moumita via her LinkedIn or via email.

View Moumita's work as it appears in the Inspiring Minds Digital Collection.