Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Reinforcement Learning and Swarm Intelligence for Coordination of…

The School of Computer Science and Statistics,Trinity College Dublin are seeking to recruit a Postdoctoral Research Fellow to investigate the use of deep reinforcement learning (RL) and swarm intelligence techniques to optimize travel-time reliability in the presence of autonomous and conventional vehicles within the ClearWay project funded by Science Foundation Ireland from 2022-2026.

The increasing availability of sensor data, including from connected and autonomous vehicles, will make it possible to capture the detailed state of a road network in real time. Along with the ability to exercise an increasing level of control over individual vehicles either indirectly, e.g., via urban traffic control or driver guidance systems, or directly, in the case of (semi-)autonomous vehicles, this offers the opportunity to deploy new approaches to traffic management with the explicit goal of optimizing end-to-end travel-time reliability.

Extending the state of the art in deep RL and swarm intelligence, ClearWay will design algorithms for optimization of urban and highway traffic as a function of the increasing levels of sensor data and increasing levels of control over individual vehicles available. Such algorithms will need to take account of the scale, complexity, and inherent non-stationarity of traffic systems, while adapting to the many transient perturbations that effect traffic flow. The focus is on decentralized and multi-agent algorithms that allow traffic controllers to cooperate towards system-wide optimal solutions. The successful candidate is expected to make contributions to the state of the art in deep RL applied to cyber-physical systems in areas such as multi-agent cooperation, lifelong learning, transfer learning, and explainability.

The successful candidate is expected to engage in co-supervision of ClearWay PhD students, co-supervision of related undergraduate and MSc dissertation projects, ClearWay industry collaborations, the organization of the ClearWay intelligent mobility hackatons and other public engagement activities, and contribute to preparation of Horizon Europe proposals.

The position will be based in the School of Computer Science and Statistics at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland under the direction of Prof. Vinny Cahill and Prof. Ivana Dusparic. For informal inquiries please contact {vinny.cahill, ivana.dusparic}@tcd.ie .