Stochastic Control for Large-Scale Safety-Critical Systems

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We began using robots to help us with simple and repetitive tasks. Now, we are introducing automation in ever increasing safety-critical and complex tasks: intelligent transportation networks, smart power grid, robotics search and rescue, personalized medicine. The goal of my research is to ensure these autonomous systems make our societies safer and improve our quality of life. There are two main control challenges in achieving this goal: 1) Autonomous systems needs to complete complex tasks in uncertain changing environments: consider, for instance, self-driving cars or search and rescue robots. 2) Interacting autonomous systems in a network need to coordinate their decision making: consider, for instance, intelligent transportation networks and the power grid. To address the above challenges, I develop provably safe and optimal control algorithms for large-scale and interconnected systems with uncertainty. In my approach, I combine physics based models and classical control with advanced optimization and learning to design control laws that learn from past data efficiently and adapt to changes in real-time. In the past, I have worked with air transportation researchers and NASA Aeronautics to improve safety and efficiency of the air traffic management, and with power system researchers to ensure safe and optimal integration of renewable energy into the power grid. As an incoming faculty member to Canada, I will additionally explore applications that are newer to me but are relevant to Canada. These include safe control algorithms for autonomous cars and safe decision making algorithms to assist humans in controlling wildfires. I will train graduate and undergraduate students on latest advances in control, optimization and learning theory. Having in mind societally relevant applications as the research motivation, my students will develop theory with practical use cases as well as an interdisciplinary problem solving skill leveraging advances in control, mathematics, computer science and robotics. I have been supporting women to pursue their talents in engineering through volunteer work with women groups at my home university and in the community. I will work with UBC Equity & Inclusion office to actively encourage talented women to join my research group and to support them in becoming leaders in academia, industry or government. The scientific impact of my research includes shedding light on fundamental understanding of challenges of decision making in uncertain and dynamic environments and an interdisciplinary solution approach to address these challenges. The potential practical impacts of my research include improving safety and efficiency of the autonomous systems and consequently, assisting humans in safety-critical complex tasks. My research has also the potential to lead to startup companies and collaborations with industry and government.