About Me

I have an MSc in Physics, with a thesis on the Monte Carlo simulation of a particle detector of the ATLAS experiment at CERN, which provided me with strong logical, mathematical and computer skills.

In 2016, I started a collaboration with the Robotics Research Center “E.Piaggio” of the University of Pisa, where I started a Ph.D. in 2017. I am currently part of Roboteam-Italia, one of the teams of Roborace, an autonomous full scale electric racing car competition.

I have always had a strong inclination toward software development (and in particular to object oriented design), which led me to delve into the development of the team driving simulator, based on Unreal Engine 4, which the team uses to test the whole perception, planning and control stack.

Below you can check out my professional and personal projects.

Unreal
Engine 4

Robotics

Machine Learning

Skills

These are some of my main computer skills.

C/C++

90%

ROS

90%

Git

80%

Unreal Engine 4

70%

Qt/Qt Quick

70%

C#

50%

Python

50%

MATLAB/Simulink

50%

Bash scripting

50%

Education

Currently a PhD student at the Research Center "E. Piaggio"

During my PhD my main focus in on autonomous driving. I am part of Roboteam-Italia, a team for the Roborace competition of autonomous racing cars. Within the team, I am in charge of

  • Simulation: I am developing the team driving simulator based on Unreal Engine 4 to test the entire stack (perception, planning and control).
  • Perception: my main focus is on Lidar-based localization, with or without GPS data available.

    • MSc in Particle Physics at the University of Pisa in 2016 with 110/110 cum laude, with a thesis on the Monte Carlo simulation of the Inner Tracker of the ATLAS experiment for the LHC High-Luminosity Upgrade.

    BSc in Physics at the University of Cagliari in 2013 with 110/110 cum laude, with a thesis on the simulation (in Python) of the non-standard contributions to the neutrino diffusion on polarized electrons.

    Work Experience

    Research Center "E. Piaggio" Nov 2017 - present

    PhD student in Robotics (Autonomous Driving)

    Teaching assistant Apr 2019 -Jun 2019

    "Introduction to ROS" for the Distributed Robotic Systems course
    (MSc in Robotics and Automation)

    Workshop instructor Jun 2018 - Jul 2018

    Introduction to Mobile Robotics for the high school students of the ITI Galilei (Livorno)

    Master's degree Sept 2013 - Sept 2016

    Monte Carlo simulation for the analysis of performance of ITk (ATLAS Experiment)

    Stay at CERN March 2016

    Collaboration with ITk group

    XIII Seminar on Software for Nuclear, Subnuclear and Applied Physics 5 - 10 Jun 2015

    Introduction to GPU programming and the Geant4 framework

    HASCO Summer School 20 Jul - 1 Aug 2014

    A summer school on hadron physics held in Gottingen (Germany).

    Publications

    • D. Caporale, A. Settimi, F. Massa, F. Amerotti, A. Corti, A. Fagiolini, M. Guiggiani, A. Bicchi, L. Pallottino: “Towards the Design of Robotic Drivers for Full-Scale Self-Driving Racing Cars”, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2019
    • D. Caporale, A. Fagiolini, L. Pallottino, A. Settimi, A. Biondo, F. Amerotti, F. Massa, S. De Caro, A. Corti, L. Venturini: “A Planning and Control System for Self-Driving Racing Vehicles", IEEE Research and Technologies for Society and Industry (RTSI), Sept. 2018

    Contacts & Links

  • E-mail: fedemassa91@gmail.com
  • Linkedin
  • GitHub
  • GitLab
  • Roboteam-Italia
  • Resume (PDF)