Carl Hildebrandt
Contact
Email: carl@carl-h.com
Website: https://carl-h.com
Research Interests
I am a Ph.D. graduate from the University of Virginia’s LESS Lab, where I was mentored by Dr. Sebastian Elbaum. My dissertation advanced the intersection of software testing and autonomous systems, developing innovative test generation techniques, execution strategies, and adequacy metrics for applications including unmanned aerial systems, self-driving cars, and autonomous robotics. I currently apply my expertise in software testing and autonomy as a Software Systems Engineer at Nuro, where I verify and test state-of-the-art self-driving systems.
Education
Ph.D., Computer Science
•
June 2024
•
University of Virginia
Advised by:
Sebastian Elbaum
B.Eng., Computer Engineering
•
Dec 2016
•
University of Pretoria
Positions Held
Software System Engineer, Autonomy Verification and Test Engineering
•
Nuro
June 2024 — Present
Graduate Research Assistant
•
Department of Computer Science, University of Virginia, LESS Lab
August 2018 — June 2024
Head of Technology
•
Vuetech Health Innovations LLC
November 2019 — July 2022
Graduate Research Intern
•
Raytheon BBN
May 2022 — August 2022
Graduate Research Assistant
•
Department of Computer Science, University of Nebraska, NIMBUS Lab
July 2017 — July 2018
Software Engineer
•
Cheesecake Trails
January 2017 — July 2017
Publications
A Differential Testing Framework to Identify Critical AV Failures Leveraging Arbitrary Inputs
Trey Woodlief,
,
Sebastian Elbaumm
International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE)
—
2025
ODD-diLLMma: Driving Automation System ODD Compliance Checking using LLMs
,
Trey Woodlief,
Sebastian Elbaumm
International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)
—
2024
PhysCov: Physical Test Coverage for Autonomous Vehicles
,
Meriel von Stein,
Sebastian Elbaum
International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis (ISSTA)
—
2023
Carl Hildebrandt, Meriel von Stein, Sebastian Elbaum. 2023. PhysCov: Physical Test Coverage for Autonomous Vehicles. In Proceedings of the 32nd ACM SIGSOFT International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis. (ISSTA). 449-461. https://doi.org/10.1145/3597926.3598069
Mimicking Real Forces on a Drone Through a Haptic Suit to Enable Cost-Effective Validation
,
Wen Ying,
Seongkook Heo,
Sebastian Elbaum
International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)
—
2023
Carl Hildebrandt, Wen Ying, Seongkook Heo, Sebastian Elbaum. 2023. Mimicking Real Forces on a Drone Through a Haptic Suit to Enable Cost-Effective Validation. In IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation. (ICRA). 10518-10524. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICRA48891.2023.10160313
Preparing Software Engineers to Develop Robot Systems
,
Meriel von Stein,
Trey Woodlief,
Sebastian Elbaum
International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering Education and Training Track (ICSE-SEET)
—
2022
Carl Hildebrandt, Meriel von Stein, Trey Woodlief, Sebastian Elbaum. 2022. Preparing Software Engineers to Develop Robot Systems. In Proceedings of the ACM/IEEE 44th International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering Education and Training. (ICSE-SEET). 205-216. https://doi.org/10.1145/3510456.3514161
World-in-the-Loop Simulation for Autonomous Systems Validation
,
Sebastian Elbaum
International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)
—
2021
Carl Hildebrandt, Sebastian Elbaum. 2021. World-in-the-Loop Simulation for Autonomous Systems Validation. In 2021 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA). 10912-10919. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICRA48506.2021.9561240
Feasible and Stressful Trajectory Generation for Mobile Robots
,
Sebastian Elbaum,
Nicola Bezzo,
Matthew B Dwyer
International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis (ISSTA)
—
2020
Carl Hildebrandt, Sebastian Elbaum, Nicola Bezzo, Matthew B Dwyer. 2020. Feasible and Stressful Trajectory Generation for Mobile Robots. In Proceedings of the 29th ACM SIGSOFT International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis. (ISSTA). 349–362. https://doi.org/10.1145/3395363.3397387
Blending Kinematic and Software Models for Tighter Reachability Analysis
,
Sebastian Elbaum,
Nicola Bezzo
International Conference on Software Engineering: New Ideas and Emerging Technologies Results Track (ICSE-NIER)
—
2020
Carl Hildebrandt, Sebastian Elbaum, Nicola Bezzo. 2020. Blending Kinematic and Software Models for Tighter Reachability Analysis. In Proceedings of the ACM/IEEE 42nd International Conference on Software Engineering: New Ideas and Emerging Results. (ICSE-NIER). 33-36. https://doi.org/10.1145/3597926.3598069
Fire-Aware Planning of Aerial Trajectories and Ignitions
Evan Beachly,
Carrick Detweiler,
Sebastian Elbaum,
Brittany Duncan,
,
Dirac Twidwell,
Craig Allen
International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)
—
2018
Evan Beachly, Carrick Detweiler, Sebastian Elbaum, Brittany Duncan, Carl Hildebrandt, Dirac Twidwell, Craig Allen. 2018. Fire-Aware Planning of Aerial Trajectories and Ignitions. In IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems. (IROS). 685-692. https://doi.org/10.1109/IROS.2018.8593568
Patents
Systems and Methods for Safety, Security and Well-Being of Individuals
Victor Aquino,
Melony Bennis,
Tien Comlekoglu,
Jefferson Griscavage,
US Patent: US11688265B1
—
2023
[Patent]
Aquino, Victor, Melony Bennis, Tien Comlekoglu, Jefferson Griscavage, and Carl Hildebrandt. "System and methods for safety, security, and well-being of individuals." U.S. Patent 11,688,265, issued June 27, 2023.
Systems and Methods for Safety, Security and Well-Being of Individuals
Victor Aquino,
Melony Bennis,
Tien Comlekoglu,
Jefferson Griscavage,
US Patent: US11282367B1
—
2022
[Patent]
Aquino, Victor, Melony Bennis, Tien Comlekoglu, Jefferson Griscavage, and Carl Hildebrandt. "System and methods for safety, security, and well-being of individuals." U.S. Patent 11,282,367, issued March 22, 2022.
Awards and Honors
• University of Virginia - All-University Graduate Teaching Award, April 2023
• University of Virginia - Graduate Teaching Award, May 2022
• University of Virginia Research Symposium - Best Poster, September 2021
• The University of Virginia Research Symposium - Best Presentation, September 2020
• ACM SIGSOFT ISSTA - Distinguished Artifact Award, July 2020
• IEEE/RSJ IROS - Best Paper Award on Safety, Security, and Rescue Robotics, October 2018
Teaching
• Supporting Instructor: Robotics for Software Engineers
• The University of Virginia - 2022
• Lab Designer and Guest Lecturer: Robotics for Software Engineers
• The University of Virginia - 2021
• Lab Designer and Teaching Assistant: Robotics for Software Engineers
• The University of Virginia - 2020
• Head Teaching Assistant: Data Structures and Algorithms in Java
• The University of Pretoria - 2016
• Head Teaching Assistant: Program Design in C++
• The University of Pretoria - 2015
• Teaching Assistant: Data Structures and Algorithms in Java
• The University of Pretoria - 2015
• Teaching Assistant: Introduction to Programming in C
• The University of Pretoria - 2014
Service
• IROS 2024: Technical Track Paper Reviewer
• ASE 2022: Artifact Reviewer
• UVA 2022: Graduate Student Council
• ICRA 2022: Technical Track Paper Reviewer
• ICSE 2021: Student Volunteer