Recent advancements in AI, computation, and communication technologies have driven significant progress in robotics and autonomous systems. Among these, connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) are ready to become the first highly safety-critical autonomous systems available to the public. With broader adoption, CAVs have the potential to make road transport greener, safer, and more efficient. However, realizing these benefits depends on our ability to ensure system reliability, safety, and efficiency—challenges that lie at the heart of control engineering. In particular, providing safety guarantees remains a central concern for self-driving vehicles and other autonomous systems increasingly integrated into society. This talk will explore some key control and decision-making challenges in CAVs, such as real-time control and planning with enhanced situational awareness, coordinated platooning with traffic signal information, and smart charging technology that benefits both the grid and the vehicle.
Boli Chen (IEEE SM'24) obtained his PhD degree in Control Systems from Imperial College London, UK in 2016. He was a Post-Doc at Imperial college London, with the Control and Power Group from 2016 to 2019. Since September 2019, he is a Lecturer in the Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering at University College London, where he is associated with the Sensors Systems and Circuits research group and the UCL Robotics Institute. His research focuses on the control, optimization, and estimation of complex dynamical systems, with rich applications in smart cities, e.g., transportation, electric energy systems, and sensor networks. Dr Boli Chen is a member of the IEEE Control Systems Society Technical Committee on "Smart Cities". He serves as an Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems and the European Journal of Control. Additionally, he is a member of the EUCA Conference Editorial Board and the IEEE ITSC Editorial Board.