Congratulations to Xueru Ding for successfully defending her MSc thesis

Xueru Ding successfully defended her MSc thesis on September 8th, 2023.

Candidacy Report Title: 

Estimating Winter Road Friction Coefficients: An Integrated Approach using Machine Learning, Explainable AI, and Model Transferability

Description of thesis:

The aim of this thesis is to develop a winter road friction estimation model based on weather information to assist in decision-making for winter road maintenance. The thesis is divided into two main phases; the first part proposes a methodology to build the estimation model and put it into application, and assesses its feasibility; the second phase further improves the model, including a comparative analysis of different machine learning models, the use of SHAP explainable AI to interpret the inner workings of the model, and the employment of transfer learning to improve the applicability of the model.

Committee Members:

Dr. Tae J. Kwon (Supervisor), Dr. Tony Qiu (Examiner), Dr. Qipei Mei (Examiner), and Dr. Jeff Boisvert (Chair)