Abstract: Advances in connectivity and sensor technologies coupled with the availability of powerful hardware and software tools and internet are slowly changing the intelligence on vehicles and the way we manage and control traffic for improved mobility and safety. These technologies allow us to shift most decisions made on the physical environment to a virtual environment where powerful software tools can optimize, manage and control in a much more efficient, coordinated and automated way. 

While on the vehicle level safety is the main priority, on the traffic level efficiency and mobility is the primary goal. This brings up two levels of control one on the vehicle level which dictates the movement of vehicle and one on the system level which looks at the flows rather than what each vehicle is doing. 

In this talk I will address some fundamental issues with vehicle safety, how it improved over the years and what are the main challenges as we move toward fully automated vehicles without human drivers. I will address how smart vehicles can be connected with the infrastructure by serving as sensors and actuators in assisting the infrastructure in optimizing and managing traffic flows for better mobility and what is the importance of feedback control and optimization for safety and mobility. 

I will present examples on vehicle and traffic levels how control and optimization can improve safety and mobility. I will address the importance of connectivity that will facilitate centrally coordinated approaches where system optimality becomes the main objective. Several examples of applications will be presented. 

Short Biography: Petros Ioannou is a University Professor at the University of Southern California and holds the A.V ‘Bal’ Balakrishnan Endowed Chair in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He also holds a courtesy appointment with the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering and the Department of Industrial Systems Engineering. He is the founder and Director of the Center for Advanced Transportation Technologies and co-founder of the University Transportation Center METRANS and Associate Director for research for the Pacific Southwest Region (PSR) University Transportation Center (UTC) at the University of Southern California. He is also the founder and Director of a successful Master program in Financial Engineering housed at the Viterbi School of Engineering and the Director of a newly established center on Responsible AI for Decision Making in Finance (CREDIF). Dr. Ioannou is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, National Academy of Inventors and Foreign Member of the Academia Europaea and the European Academy of Sciences, a Life Fellow of IEEE and Fellow of IFAC and AAAS. He is the author/co-author of 11 books and over 400 research papers in the areas of controls and applications and intelligent transportation systems.