Optimal Traffic Control Synthesis for an Isolated Intersection

Abstract:

A continuous dynamical model of a simplified controlled isolated intersection is derived in order to find and analyze an optimal control policy to minimize total delay. An analytical solution of the optimal control problem with constrained signal light control is presented. The optimal synthesis is found for the four principal control constraint cases. Previous results from the nineteen sixties and seventies are discussed.

Biography:Per-Olof Gutman was born in Höganäs, Sweden on 21 May 1949. He received the Civ.-Ing. degree in Engineering Physics (1973), the Ph.D. in Automatic Control (1982) and the title of Docent in Automatic Control (1988), all from the Lund Institute of Technology, Lund, Sweden. He received the MSE degree from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1977 as a Fulbright grant recipient.

From 1973 to 1975 he taught mathematics in Tanzania. 1983-84 he held a post-doctoral position at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel. 1984-1990 he was a scientist with the Control Systems Section, El-Op Electro-Optics Industries Ltd, Rehovot, Israel. From 1989 he is with the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, holding, since 2007, the position of Professor at the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Gutman was a visiting professor with Laboratoire d'Automatique, ENSIEG, Grenoble, France in 1995-96, spent most summers 1990-2006 as a visiting professor at the Division of Optimization and Systems Theory, Department of Mathematics, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden, and was a visiting professor with Universita del Sannio, Benevento, Italy, 2005-2006. The current academic year 2009-2010 he is a researcher of robotics control at the Commissariat de l'Energie Atomique, Fontenay-aux-Roses, France.

His research interests include robust and adaptive control, computer aided design, control of complex non-linear systems such as paper machines, off-road (autonomous) vehicle control and robot control, traffic control, and control applications in agriculture, such as greenhouse modelling and control, and water supply systems control.

Gutman has (co-)authored over 60 papers for reviewed international journals, has contributed to 6 books, and co-authored Qsyn - THE Toolbox for Robust Control Systems Design for use with Matlab. He has supervised 13 graduate students. He served as an associate editor of Automatica, and as an EU evaluator of research proposals.