Gregory J. Barlow

Robotics Institute
Carnegie Mellon University

About

I am a postdoctoral fellow in the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, where I work with Stephen Smith in the Intelligent Coordination and Logistics Laboratory.

My current research is on real-time adaptive traffic signal control for urban road networks. We have recently completed a pilot test of a system we've developed called SURTRAC (Scalable Urban Traffic Control) on nine intersections in the East Liberty commercial district in Pittsburgh. We are in the process of doubling the size of the pilot site, and future expansions are planned.

I received my Ph.D. in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon in 2011. My dissertation focused on improving memory for optimization and learning algorithms on problems with dynamic environments. I developed two novel classes of explicit memory to exploit information from previous solutions as a problem changes.

My general research interests are in the application of optimization, learning, and search to real-world problems, particularly problems with dynamic or uncertain environments. One of my other research interests is evolutionary robotics, the design of robot controllers using evolutionary computation.

Education

Recent publications

  • Stephen F. Smith, Gregory J. Barlow, Xiao-Feng Xie, and Zachary B. Rubinstein. "SURTRAC: Scalable Urban Traffic Control." Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting. Washington, DC. January 2013. (bib)
  • Xiao-Feng Xie, Stephen F. Smith, Liang Lu, and Gregory J. Barlow. "Schedule-driven intersection control." Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies. Volume 24, pages 168-189. October 2012. (abstract, bib, pdf)
  • Xiao-Feng Xie, Stephen F. Smith, and Gregory J. Barlow. "Schedule-driven coordination for real-time traffic network control." International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling (ICAPS). Sao Paulo, Brazil. June 2012. (bib, pdf)
  • Xiao-Feng Xie, Stephen F. Smith, and Gregory J. Barlow. "Coordinated look-ahead scheduling for real-time traffic signal control." International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS). Valencia, Spain. June 2012. (bib)
  • Xiao-Feng Xie, Gregory J. Barlow, Stephen F. Smith, and Zachary B. Rubinstein. "Self-Scheduling Agents for Real-Time Traffic Signal Control." IEEE Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems. Washington, DC. October 2011. (bib)