Research Interests

Application Areas 

• Cyber-resilient transportation

• Climate-resilient transportation

• Aging-resilient transportation

• Advanced transportation technologies (e.g., autonomous mobility)

Methodological Areas

• Trustworthy AI

• (Data-driven) optimization

• Game theory and multi-agent systems

• Transportation network modeling and control

Research Highlights

Cyber-Resilient Transportation Systems

Transportation systems are becoming increasingly integrated cyber (e.g., AI) and physical (e.g., sensing) systems, promising societal and economic benefits through connected and autonomous mobility of people and goods. Cyber-physical couplings are, however, a double-edged sword as they can pose new vulnerabilities due to the inheritance of performance across cyber and physical layers. Cyber-attacks can tamper with the sensing (eyes), computing (brain), and actuation (muscles) elements of cyber-physical transportation systems, thereby breach public trust in and hinder mass societal and economic benefits of smart transportation systems. To tackle, we develop novel trustworthy AI and game-theoretic frameworks to both proactively mitigate and reactively adapt to cyber-attacks. The novelty lies in the guarantee (theoretical certification), autonomy (self-adaptation), and generalizability (attack-invariance) of the system-level cyber-defense decisions.

Climate-Resilient Transportation Systems

Climate-induced disasters have been more frequently and intensely impacting societies and the transportation systems that are essential for the mobility of people and goods upon which societies depend. To tackle, transportation systems decision making standards, rooted in historical climate observations and the assumption of a stationary climate, need to be transformed in the face of accelerating climate change. We take on two complementary approaches to both mitigate and adapt to climate change: 1) by challenging the status-quo of climate change, our climate mitigation strategies focus on technology-driven decarbonization of transportation, specifically through system-level optimization and data analytics of electric, shared, autonomous, and connected transportation technologies, and 2) by acknowledging the status-quo of climate change, our climate adaptation strategies develop system-level optimization and large-scale simulations to enable equitable and efficient adaptation decisions, such as re-routing and evacuation routing, in the aftermath of climate-induced disruptions.

Aging-Resilient Transportation Infrastructure Systems

The resilience of engineered systems, such as transportation infrastructure, to external cyber and climate stresses is not only dependent on the intensity and frequency of those external shocks, but also depends on how aging-related deterioration of the system may affect the original functions necessary for continued system operation and survival. To bolster system resilience against both external and internal stressors, our research adopts a holistic, lifecycle approach that consists primarily of three integrated components: 1) data-driven predictive analytics for reliable forecasts of the conditions of infrastructure system components throughout lifecycle, which is challenging due to the uncertainty and dynamics of the infrastructure aging process, 2) (data-driven) optimization of preemptive maintenance decisions over the lifespan of infrastructure systems, which is a daunting task due to the functionally and financially interdependent components in infrastructure systems, and 3) system-level optimization of joint retrofit and maintenance decisions to enhance the resilience of aging infrastructure systems.