Research

For information about my PhD research please visit my university hosted personal webpage.

My research interests at Massey University were in agent based simulation and artificial intelligence. My research at both postgraduate and undergraduate levels has focused on agent based vehicle traffic simulation. At Massey University I was a member of the Complex Systems and Simulations Research Group within the Institute of Information and Mathematical Sciences.

Honours Research Project

My honours project for my BSc (Hons) focused on the modeling of congestion within a traffic network. The ideas for the project built upon the ideas explored in my undergraduate research project. The final project was completed in Java and used Java OpenGL (JOGL) to render the 3D environment.

Abstract

The simulation of traffic involves the modeling of a complex system that is open, shows emergent phenomena, and non-linear relationships. This project outlines the ideas involved in traffic simulation and reports on the results of a traffic simulator designed to model congestion amongst urban and suburban roads. The traffic simulator in this project uses artificial intelligence to give individual behavioural characteristics to each vehicle within the simulation and successfully model their interactions between vehicles and the environment. Overall this project successfully shows a relationship between the amount of congestion present in a traffic network and the mean speed of the vehicles in the network, and the effects of various different intersection controllers on traffic flow. It is discovered that the best method for maintaining high mean speeds as traffic flows through intersections is to use a mixture of intersection controllers on connected roads to vary the flow of traffic on each road.

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Artificial Intelligence Controlling Cars Following Distances

Artificial Intelligence Controlling Cars' Following Distances

Undergraduate Research Project: Traffic Simulation

This project was completed in Semester Two 2007 during my final year of my BSc. The project was completed by me and fellow student Dean Jerkovich with supervision from Professor Ken Hawick. Both I and Dean were awarded an A+ grade for our work.

This project was my first attempt at building a simulator. At the end of the project we were able to successfully model multiple agents and their interactions with each other. The simulator was built in Java and allowed the user to design a traffic network consisting of roads with multiple lanes and intersections which were controlled by simple traffic lights. Cars are generated at random locations on each road at the start of the simulation and will have a randomised goal location for each of them to reach. The cars have no artificial intelligence for navigation so as a result they drive randomly around the network until they stumble upon their goal. The simulator stops running when all cars have located their goal.

Each of the cars in the simulator has artificial intelligence controlling their acceleration, braking, awareness of vehicles in front, and overtaking. Each agent also has a randomly distributed normal variable which determines how far below or above the speed limit the vehicle will travel at.

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