Areas of Research

Recent Publications

Below is a list of our most recent publications. PDF eprints are available upon request.

  • M. Liu, F. Wirth, M. Corless, R. Shorten, On the stability and convergence of a class of consensus systems with a nonlinear input, Automatica, vol. 86, pp. 205-211, 2017.
  • S.E. Alam, R. Shorten, F. Wirth, J.Y. Yu, Distributed multi-resource allocation with little communication overhead. Available at: https://arxiv.org/abs/1711.01977v1
  • M. Souza, A.R. Fioravanti, M. Corless, R.N. Shorten, Switching controller design with dwell-times and sampling, IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, vol. 62, no. 11, pp. 5837-5843, 2017.
  • N. Taheri, J.Y. Yu, R. Shorten, A fair assignment of drivers to parking lots, 2017 International Smart Cities Conference (ISC2), Wuxi, China, 2017.
  • M. Souza, A.R. Fioravanti, R.N. Shorten, Frequency-domain methods for sparse linear systems discretisation, IFAC PapersOnLine, vol. 50, no. 1, pp. 3612–3616, 2017.
  • V.B. Falchetto, M. Souza, A.R. Fioravanti, R.N. Shorten, H2 and H∞ analysis for discrete-time constrained switched linear systems, IFAC PapersOnLine, vol. 50, no. 1, pp. 2076–2081, 2017.
  • J. Epperlein, R. Shorten, S. Zhuk, Recovering Markov models from closed-loop data. Available at: https://arxiv.org/abs/1706.06359v2
  • S. Sweeney, R. Ordonez-Hurtado, F. Pilla, G. Russo, D. Timoney, R. Shorten, Cyberphysics, pollution mitigation, and pedelecs. Available at: https://arxiv.org/abs/1706.00646v2
  • J Marecek, R Shorten, JY Yu, Distributionally Robust Optimisation in Congestion Control. arXiv preprint arXiv:1705.09152
  • W Griggs, G Russo, R Shorten, Leader and Leaderless Multi-Layer Consensus With State Obfuscation: An Application to Distributed Speed Advisory Systems, IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, 2017.
  • Y Gu, M Liu, J Naoum-Sawaya, E Crisostomi, G Russo, R Shorten, Pedestrian-Aware Engine Management Strategies for Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles, IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, 2017.
  • O Moran, R Gilmore, R Ordóñez-Hurtado, R Shorten, Hybrid Urban Navigation for Smart Cities. arXiv preprint arXiv:1705.01516
  • A Herrmann, M Liu, R Shorten, A New Take on Protecting Cyclists in Smart Cities. arXiv preprint arXiv:1704.04540
  • M Corless, E Zeheb, R Shorten, On the SPRification of linear descriptor systems via output feedback. arXiv preprint arXiv:1704.01771
  • S Sajja, M Corless, R Shorten, Stability tests for a class of switched descriptor systems with non-homogenous indices. arXiv preprint arXiv:1704.00960
  • RH Ordóñez-Hurtado, E Crisostomi, RN Shorten, An assessment on the use of stationary vehicles to support cooperative positioning systems, International Journal of Control, 2017.
  • J Naoum-Sawaya, E Crisostomi, M Liu, Y Gu, R Shorten, Smart procurement of naturally generated energy (sponge) for plug-in hybrid electric buses, IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering, 14 (2), 598-607, 2017.
  • AR Fioravanti, J Marecek, RN Shorten, M Souza, FR Wirth, On Classical Control and Smart Cities. arXiv preprint arXiv:1703.07308
  • M Souza, FR Wirth, RN Shorten, A Note on Recursive Schur Complements, Hurwitz Stability of Metzler Matrices and Related Results, IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, 2017.
  • M Souza, AR Fioravanti, RN Shorten, On analysis and design of discrete-time constrained switched systems, International Journal of Control, 2017.
  • S Stuedli, M Corless, R Middleton, R Shorten, On the AIMD Algorithm Under Saturation Constraints, IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, 2017.
  • E Crisostomi, R Shorten, S Stüdli, F Wirth, Electric and Plug-in Hybrid Vehicle Networks: Optimization and Control, CRC Press.

Analytics

The following work provides theoretical foundations for smart transport applications.

  • F. Wirth, S. Stüdli, J.Y. Yu, M. Corless, R.N. Shorten, Nonhomogeneous place-dependent Markov chains, unsynchronised AIMD, and network utility maximization. Available at: http://arxiv.org/abs/1404.5064v3

Cooperative Positioning

The localisation of vehicles has been addressed via the cooperative positioning approach discussed in the following papers.

  • R.H. Ordóñez-Hurtado, E. Crisostomi, W.M. Griggs, R.N. Shorten, An assessment on the use of stationary vehicles as a support to cooperative positioning. Available at: http://arxiv.org/abs/1502.00974v2
  • R.H. Ordóñez-Hurtado, R.N. Shorten, Using stationary vehicles to enhance cooperative positioning in vehicular ad-hoc networks, 3rd International Conference on Connected Vehicles and Expo, Vienna, Austria, 2014.

Electric Bikes

Electric Vehicles

Electric vehicles suffer a number of problems. Range, long charging times and a number of other issues are dealt with in the following papers.

  • C. King, W. Griggs, F. Wirth, K. Quinn, R. Shorten, Alleviating a form of electric vehicle range anxiety through on-demand vehicle access, International Journal of Control, vol. 88, no. 4, pp. 717-728, 2015.
  • M. Liu, W. Griggs, C. King, F. Wirth, P. Borrel, R. Shorten, Applying a QoS-based fleet dimension method to reduce fleet emissions, 2nd International Conference on Connected Vehicles and Expo, pp. 732-733, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, 2013.
  • C. King, W. Griggs, F. Wirth, R. Shorten, Using a car sharing model to alleviate electric vehicle range anxiety, The 16th Yale Workshop on Adaptive and Learning Systems, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA, June 2013. [Discussed in WirtschaftsWoche]
  • S. Stüdli, E. Crisostomi, R. Middleton, R. Shorten, A flexible distributed framework for realising electric and plug-in hybrid vehicle charging policies, International Journal of Control, vol. 85, no. 8, pp. 1130-1145, 2012.
  • A. Schlote, E. Crisostomi, S. Kirkland, R. Shorten, Traffic modelling framework for electric vehicles, International Journal of Control, vol. 85, no. 7, pp. 880-897, 2012.
  • S. Stüdli, E. Crisostomi, R. Middleton, R. Shorten, AIMD-like algorithms for charging electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles, IEEE International Electric Vehicle Conference, Greenville, South Carolina, USA, 2012.
  • S. Stüdli, W. Griggs, E. Crisostomi, R. Shorten, On optimality criteria for V2G charging strategies, 1st International Conference on Connected Vehicles and Expo, pp. 345-346, Beijing, China, 2012.

Hardware-in-the-Loop Simulation

Evaluating the success of new large-scale intelligent transportation systems methodologies can prove difficult, given that researchers and engineers usually do not have access to very large test fleets of real vehicles equipped with the appropriate devices and technologies. We are building a platform that embeds real vehicles into large-scale traffic scenarios emulated by SUMO. Our platform provides the advantage of being able to demonstrate proof-of-concept on a real vehicle while it interacts with many simulated vehicles.

  • W.M. Griggs, R.H. Ordóñez-Hurtado, E. Crisostomi, F. Häusler, K. Massow, R.N. Shorten, A large-scale SUMO-based emulation platform, to appear in IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems.
  • W.M. Griggs, R.N. Shorten, Embedding real vehicles in SUMO for large-scale ITS scenario emulation, 2nd International Conference on Connected Vehicles and Expo, pp. 962-963, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, 2013. [Best Digest Paper]

Hybrid Vehicles and Pollution Control

Hybrid vehicles offer great flexibility in the way that they interact with our cities. They can be polluting where there are no people or sensitive spots (e.g. schools or hospitals) and non-polluting elsewhere. This leads to new tools as to how these vehicles can interact with our cities. Pollution control ideas in this direction are documented in the following publications.

  • J. Naoum-Sawaya, E. Crisostomi, M. Liu, Y. Gu, R. Shorten, Smart Procurement of Naturally Generated Energy (SPONGE) for plug-in hybrid electric buses, to appear in IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering.
  • F. Häusler, M. Faizrahnemoon, E. Crisostomi, A. Schlote, I. Radusch, R. Shorten, A framework for real-time emissions trading in large-scale vehicle fleets, IET Intelligent Transport Systems, vol. 9, no. 3, pp. 275-284, 2015.
  • A. Schlote, F. Häusler, T. Hecker, A. Bergmann, E. Crisostomi, I. Radusch, R. Shorten, Cooperative regulation and trading of emissions using plug-in hybrid vehicles, IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, vol. 14, no. 4, pp. 1572-1585, 2013.
  • F. Häusler, M. Faizrahnemoon, E. Crisostomi, A. Schlote, I. Radusch, R. Shorten, A framework for optimal real-time emissions trading in large-scale vehicle fleets, 9th ITS European Congress, Dublin, Ireland, 2013. [Best Paper Award]
  • A. Schlote, F. Häusler, T. Hecker, A. Bergmann, E. Crisostomi, I. Radusch, R. Shorten, Cooperative regulation of emissions using plug-in hybrid vehicles, 1st International Conference on Connected Vehicles and Expo, pp. 201-202, Beijing, China, 2012. [Best Digest Paper: Runner-Up]
  • F. Knorn, M. Corless, R. Shorten, A result on implicit consensus with application to emissions control, 50th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, and European Control Conference 2011, pp. 1299-1304, Orlando, Florida, USA, 2011.
  • The TwinLin Project.

Integrated Chassis Control and Vehicle Emulator

We worked on the design of vehicle emulators in the context of the CEMACS project. This was in collaboration with Mercedes-Benz.

  • C. Villegas, M. Corless, W. Griggs, R. Shorten, A passivity based decentralized control design methodology with application to vehicle dynamics control, Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement, and Control, vol. 134, no. 1, 2012.
  • C. Villegas, Y.-L. Chow, M. Corless, R. Shorten, W. Griggs, A decentralized control technique for vehicle chassis control, 50th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, and European Control Conference 2011, pp. 2535-2540, Orlando, Florida, USA, 2011.

Parking and Charging

Parking is a new interest for us. Some early work can be found in the following papers.

  • E. Thompson, R. Ordóñez-Hurtado, W. Griggs, J. Y. Yu, B. Mulkeen, R. Shorten, On charge point anxiety and the sharing economy, submitted to 20th International IEEE Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems, Yokohama, Japan, 2017. [Preprint]
  • R. Cogill, O. Gallay, W. Griggs, C. Lee, Z. Nabi, R. Ordonez, M. Rufli, R. Shorten, T. Tchrakian, R. Verago, F. Wirth, S. Zhuk, Parked cars as a service delivery platform, 3rd International Conference on Connected Vehicles and Expo, Vienna, Austria, 2014. [Discussed in The Irish Times]
  • A. Schlote, C. King, E. Crisostomi, R. Shorten, Delay-tolerant stochastic algorithms for parking space assignment, IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, vol. 15, no. 5, pp. 1922-1935, 2014.
  • F. Häusler, E. Crisostomi, A. Schlote, I. Radusch, R. Shorten, Stochastic park-and-charge balancing for fully electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles, IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 895-901, 2014.
  • A. Schlote, B. Chen, M. Sinn, R. Shorten, The effect of feedback in the assignment problem in shared bicycle systems, 2nd International Conference on Connected Vehicles and Expo, pp. 960-961, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, 2013.
  • A. Schlote, C. King, E. Crisostomi, R. Shorten, Stochastic algorithms for parking space assignment, 9th ITS European Congress, Dublin, Ireland, 2013.
  • F. Häusler, E. Crisostomi, A. Schlote, I. Radusch, R. Shorten, Stochastically balanced parking and charging for fully electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles, 1st International Conference on Connected Vehicles and Expo, pp. 341-342, Beijing, China, 2012.

Rollover Prevention

For a sample of our work on rollover prevention, see the following papers.

  • J. Chiu, S. Solmaz, M. Corless, R. Shorten, A methodology for the design of robust rollover prevention controllers for automotive vehicles using differential braking, International Journal of Vehicle Autonomous Systems, vol. 8, pp. 146-170, 2010.
  • S. Solmaz, M. Akar, R. Shorten, J. Kalkkuhl, Real-time multiple-model estimation of centre of gravity position in automotive vehicles, Vehicle System Dynamics, vol. 46, no. 9, pp. 763-788, 2008.
  • S. Solmaz, R. Shorten, K. Wulff, F. Ó Cairbre, A design methodology for switched discrete time linear systems with applications to automotive roll dynamics control, Automatica, vol. 44, no. 9, pp. 2358-2363, 2008.
  • S. Solmaz, M. Corless, R. Shorten, A methodology for the design of robust rollover prevention controllers for automotive vehicles with active steering, International Journal of Control, vol. 80, no. 11, pp. 1763-1779, 2007.
  • R. Shorten, S. Solmaz, A method of determining the tire conditions of a vehicle. European Patent Application number 09010853.1, August 2009.
  • M. Akar, S. Solmaz, R. Shorten, Method for determining the centre of gravity for an automotive vehicle. PCT International Publication number WO 2007/098891 A1, September 2007. PCT International Application number PCT/EP2007/001584, February 2007.

Routing

The routing of cars through our cities is an area open for innovative approaches. Some new ideas in this domain can be found in the following papers.

  • F. Häusler, R.H. Ordóñez-Hurtado, W.M. Griggs, I. Radusch, R.N. Shorten, Closed-loop flow regulation with balanced routing, 3rd International Conference on Connected Vehicles and Expo, Vienna, Austria, 2014.
  • A. Schlote, E. Crisostomi, R. Shorten, Balanced routing for EVs, 1st International Conference on Connected Vehicles and Expo, pp. 343-344, Beijing, China, 2012.
  • E. Crisostomi, S. Kirkland, R. Shorten, Robust and risk-averse routing algorithms in road networks, 18th World Congress of the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC), pp. 9512-9517, Milano, Italy, 2011.

Smart Gearbox Design

Our earliest work was a smart gearbox design.

  • R. Shorten, K. Hunt, Verfahren zur fahrweisen und/oder fahrzustandsabhängingen Schaltstufeneinstellung für ein Kraftfahrzeug-Automatgetriebe (in German). Patent number 19501315 (München), 1995.

Speed Advisory Systems

We have investigated intelligent speed adaptation and have proposed the speed advisory systems reported in the following papers.

  • M. Liu, R.H. Ordóñez-Hurtado, F. Wirth, Y. Gu, E. Crisostomi, R.N. Shorten, A distributed and privacy-aware speed advisory system for optimising conventional and electric vehicles networks, to appear in IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems.
  • Y. Gu, M. Liu, E. Crisostomi, R. Shorten, Optimised consensus for highway speed limits via intelligent speed advisory systems, 3rd International Conference on Connected Vehicles and Expo, Vienna, Austria, 2014.
  • R.H. Ordóñez-Hurtado, W.M. Griggs, K. Massow, R.N. Shorten, Evaluation of a new intelligent speed advisory system using hardware-in-the-loop simulation, 2nd International Conference on Connected Vehicles and Expo, pp. 945-946, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, 2013.
  • R.H. Ordóñez-Hurtado, W.M. Griggs, K. Massow, R.N. Shorten, Intelligent speed advising based on cooperative traffic scenario determination, in H. Waschl, I. Kolmanovsky, M. Steinbuch, L. del Re (Eds.), Lecture Notes in Control and Information Sciences: Optimization and Optimal Control in Automotive Systems, vol. 455, pp. 77-92, 2014, Springer.

Suspension Design

We have also done some work on suspension design for both conventional and electric vehicles.

  • M. Readman, M. Corless, C. Villegas, R. Shorten, Adaptive Williams filters for active vehicle suspensions, Transactions of the Institute of Measurement and Control, vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 660-676, 2010.

Traffic Modelling

We have worked on a number of traffic models that allow control design and routing for several vehicle classes. Some early work can be found in the following papers.

  • M. Faizrahnemoon, A. Schlote, E. Crisostomi, R. Shorten, A Google-like model for public transport, 2nd International Conference on Connected Vehicles and Expo, pp. 612-613, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, 2013.
  • E. Crisostomi, S. Kirkland, R. Shorten, A Google-like model of road network dynamics and its application to regulation and control, International Journal of Control, vol. 84, no. 3, pp. 633-651, 2011.
  • E. Crisostomi, S. Kirkland, A. Schlote, R. Shorten, Markov Chain Based Emissions Models: A Precursor for Green Control, in Green IT: Technologies and Applications, Springer, pp. 381-400, 2011.
  • A. Schlote, E. Crisostomi, S. Kirkland, R. Shorten, A Google-like model of road network dynamics, The 15th Yale Workshop on Adaptive and Learning Systems, Yale University, New Haven, 2011.

Vehicle-Grid Integration

The following papers investigate ideas concerning the integration of vehicles into the grid.

  • F. Häusler, E. Crisostomi, I. Radusch, R. Shorten, Smart Procurement Of Naturally Generated Energy (SPONGE) for PHEVs. Available at: http://arxiv.org/abs/1501.02931v2
  • S. Stüdli, E. Crisostomi, R. Middleton, J. Braslavsky, R. Shorten, Distributed load management using additive increase multiplicative decrease based techniques, in S. Rajakaruna, F. Shahnia, A. Ghosh (Eds.), Plug In Electric Vehicles in Smart Grids (Energy Management), pp. 173-202, Power Systems 2015, Springer.
  • M. Liu, E. Crisostomi, Y. Gu, R. Shorten, Optimal distributed consensus algorithm for fair V2G power dispatch in a microgrid, IEEE International Electric Vehicle Conference, Florence, Italy, 2014.
  • E. Crisostomi, M. Liu, M. Raugi, R. Shorten, Plug-and-play distributed algorithms for optimized power generation in a microgrid, IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 2145-2154, 2014.
  • S. Stüdli, E. Crisostomi, R. Middleton, R. Shorten, Optimal real-time distributed V2G and G2V management of electric vehicles, International Journal of Control, vol. 87, no. 6, pp. 1153-1162, 2014.
  • S. Stüdli, W. Griggs, E. Crisostomi, R. Shorten, On optimality criteria for reverse charging of electric vehicles, IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 451-456, 2014.