Alexander A. Kurzhanskiy

ASSOCIATE RESEARCH ENGINEER

Richmond Field Station, MC 3580
Richmond, CA 94804
United States
Phone: 
510-374-4606
Email Address: 

Biography

Alex Kurzhanskiy received his M.S in Applied Mathematics & Computer Science from Lomonosov Moscow University and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science at Berkeley. He joined PATH as a Postdoctoral Researcher in 2008 and in 2011 he became a part of PATH research staff.

Presently, Dr. Kurzhanskiy is co-leading projects “Augmenting Connected Vehicle’s Awareness with I2V Information at Intersections” under Berkeley Deep Drive program and “Safe Operation of Automated Vehicles at Intersections” sponsored by Caltrans. He also manages 4-year NSF project “Traffic Operating System for Smart Cities” with transfer to practice.

In 2015-16 Dr. Kurzhanskiy conducted Caltrans projects “Modeling and Control of High Occupancy or Tolled (HOT) Lanes”, “HOT Lane Simulation Tools” and “Sustainable Operation of Arterial Networks”. The focus of these projects were: (1) measurement data analysis; (2) model development and identification of its parameters; and (3) simulation and evaluation of performance measures.

In 2013-14 Dr. Kurzhanskiy was a technical lead from UC Berkeley side of the pilot Interstate 680 Corridor System Management Plan project conducted by Connected Corridors for Caltrans District 4, which aimed at trying out novel approaches of traffic modeling and simulation for operations planning. He was responsible for developing calibration and simulation model quality evaluation tools for operations planning.

In 2012-14 Dr. Kurzhanskiy had actively contributed to various parts of the Connected Corridors program. He educated the team of software developers about the traffic engineering problems the program is solving and made significant impact on the software system design. Participating in research meetings and working with graduate students individually, he provides valuable guidance and mentorship to junior researchers.

Dr. Kurzhanskiy is the author of Aurora Road Network Modeler (RNM) © http://code.google.com/p/aurorarnm – a set of tools for operational planning and management of travel corridors (road networks comprised of freeways and surrounding urban arterials) and analysis of their performance. It is based on the Aurora object-oriented framework for simulation and analysis of flow networks and is implemented in Java. Aurora RNM has been used by transportation researchers in over twenty countries around the world. Since 2010, Aurora RNM was taught in the graduate course “Traffic Operations” in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UC Berkeley (CEE 255).

Dr. Kurzhanskiy is the author of CTMSIM © http://ucb-trans.org/topl/software.html – interactive freeway traffic macro-simulator for MATLAB. CTMSIM has proved to be a handy tool for transportation researchers who can use it for evaluating ramp metering algorithms and for estimating the impact of different response times in the incident management.

RESEARCH INTERESTS AND EXPERTISE

  • Transportation: Traffic Engineering, Traffic Modeling & Simulation, Traffic Signal Control, GIS, Traffic Data Collection & Processing
  • Dynamical Systems: Automatic Control Theory and Applications, Stochastic Processes
  • Partial Differential Equations: Numerical Methods, Inverse Problems
  • Cyber-Physical Systems: Dynamic Modeling & Simulation, Identification, State Estimation & Control
  • Data Science: Time Series Analysis, Cluster Analysis, Convex Optimization, Compressed Sensing
  • Information Technology: Distributed Computation, Parallelization, MapReduce, CUDA and GPU computing

Publications

Journal Papers

On Node Models for High-Dimensional Road Networks
M. Wright, G. Gomes, R. Horowitz, A.A. Kurzhanskiy. Transportation Research, Part B. 105C, pp. 212-234. Online: http://arxiv.org/abs/1601.01054. 2017

Traffic Management: An Outlook
A.A. Kurzhanskiy and P. Varaiya. Economics of Transportation Special Issue: Transportation Science. 4(3), pp. 135-146. 2015

Modeling Toll Lanes and Dynamic Pricing Control
E. Dorogush and A.A. Kurzhanskiy. International Journal of Computer and System Sciences, 54(3), pp. 440-457. Online:  http://arxiv.org/abs/1505.00506. 2014

Guaranteed Prediction and Estimation of the State of a Road Network
A.A. Kurzhanskiy and P. Varaiya. Transportation Research, Part C, 21(1), pp. 163-180.  2012

Reach Set Computation and Control Synthesis for Discrete-Time Dynamical Systems with Disturbances
A.A. Kurzhanskiy and P. Varaiya. Automatica, 47(7), pp. 1414-1426.  2011

Theory and Computational Techniques for Analysis of Discrete-Time Control Systems with Disturbances
A.A. Kurzhanskiy and P. Varaiya. Optimization Methods & Software, 26(4-5), pp. 719-746.  2011

Active Traffic Management on Road Networks: A Macroscopic Approach
A.A. Kurzhanskiy and P. Varaiya. Philosophical Transactions of Royal Society A, 368, pp. 4607-4626.  2010

Behavior of the Cell Transmission Model and Effectiveness of Ramp Metering
G. Gomes, R. Horowitz, A.A. Kurzhanskiy, P. Varaiya, and J. Kwon. Transportation Research C, 16(4), pp. 485-513.  2008

Ellipsoidal Techniques for Reachability Analysis of Discrete-Time Linear Systems
A.A. Kurzhanskiy and P. Varaiya. IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, 52(1), pp. 26-38.  2007

Conference Papers
The Disengagement Dilemma of Automated Vehicles
A. Medury,  M. Yu, O. Grembek, A.A. Kurzhanskiy, P. Varaiya. ITS World Congress in Montreal, Canada. 2017
 
An Energy-Based Optimal Control Problem for Unmanned Aircraft Systems Flight Planning
Z. Liu,  R. Sengupta, A. Kurzhanskiy. SICE Annual Conference in Kanazawa, Japan. 2017
 
Effect of Adaptive and Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control on Throughput of Signalized Arterials
A. Askari,  D.A. Farias, A.A. Kurzhanskiy, P. Varaiya. IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium in Redondo Beach, CA, USA. 2017
 
Mixed Monotonicity of First-In-First-Out Traffic Flow Models
S. Coogan, M. Arcak, A.A. Kurzhanskiy. 55th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control in Las Vegas, NV, USA. 2016
 
Managing Non-Recurrent Congestion in Arterial Networks
J. Lioris,  A. Kurzhanskiy, P. Varaiya. 6th International Conference on Environment, Chemistry and Biology in Sydney, Australia. Best paper.  2016
 
A Hybrid Automaton Characterization of Road Network Node Models
M. Wright, A.A. Kurzhanskiy, R. Horowitz. 10th IFAC Symposium on Nonlinear Control Systems in Monterey, CA, USA. 2016
 
Variants of Max Pressure Control Policy for a Network of Signalized Intersections
J.Lioris, A.A. Kurzhanskiy, P. Varaiya. 23rd World Congress on Intelligent Transportation Systems in Melburne, Australia.  2016
 
Macroscopic Freeway Model Calibration with Partially Observed Data. A Case Study.
G. Dervisoglu , A.A. Kurzhanskiy , G. Gomes and R. Horowitz. American Control Conference, Portland, OR. 2014

Control Experiments for A Network of Signalized Intersections Using the ‘.Q’ Simulator
J.Lioris, A.A. Kurzhanskiy, D. Triantafyllos and P. Varaiya. Presented at the IEEE International Workshop on Discrete Event Systems, Ecole Normale Superieure de Cachan, France.  2014

Using Aurora Road Network Modeler for Active Traffic Management
A.A. Kurzhanskiy and P. Varaiya. American Control Conference, Baltimore. Invited paper.  2010

Aurora RNM – A Macroscopic Simulation Tool for Arterial Traffic Modeling and Control
A.H.F. Chow, G. Gomes, A.A. Kurzhanskiy, and P. Varaiya. 89th Annual TRB Meeting.  2010

Set-Valued Estimation of Freeway Traffic Density
A.A. Kurzhanskiy. 12th IFAC Symposium on Control in Transportation Systems, Redondo Beach.  2009

Aurora Road Network Modeler
A.A. Kurzhanskiy, J. Kwon, and P. Varaiya. 12th IFAC Symposium on Control in Transportation Systems.  2009

Aurora Arterial Modeler- A Macroscopic Tool for Urban Traffic Control
A.H.F. Chow, G. Gomes, A.A. Kurzhanskiy, and P. Varaiya. 12th IFAC Symposium on Control in Transportation Systems.  2009

Congestion in ACTM Model
G. Gomes, R. Horowitz, A.A. Kurzhanskiy, P. Varaiya, and J. Kwon. European Control Conference, Koss, Greece.  2007

Ellipsoidal Toolbox (ET)
A.A. Kurzhanskiy and P. Varaiya. 45th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, San Diego.  2006

Book Chapters
Active Traffic Management
P. Varaiya and A.A. Kurzhanskiy. Chapter 20 of “Homi Bhabha and the Computer Revolution”,
R.K. Shyamasundar and M.A. Pai, Editors. Oxford University Press.
http://www.amazon.com/Bhabha-Computer-Revolution-Edited-Shyamasundar/dp/0198072465  2011

Computation of Reach Sets for Dynamical Systems
A.A. Kurzhanskiy and P. Varaiya. Chapter 29 of Control Handbook, 2nd Edition.
W.S. Levine, Editor. Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
http://www.amazon.com/Control-Handbook-Second-Electrical-Engineering/dp/1420073664/  2010

Technical Reports and Working Papers
D. Khalthil, A. Kurzhanskiy, P. Varaiya, J. Perez. UCConnect Final Report. 2017
 
R. Horowitz, A. Kurzhanskiy, M. Wright. UCTC Final Report. 2016
 
R. Horowitz, A. Kurzhanskiy, A. Siddiqui, M. Wright. UCConnect Final Report.  2016

Online Traffic Simulation Service for Highway Incident Management
A.A. Kurzhanskiy. Final report: SHRP 2 Reliability IDEA Project L15C. Online: http://www.trb.org/main/blurbs/168802.aspx  2013

Strategic Placement of Loop Detectors for Improving the Efficiency of Ramp Metering
K. Chung, G. Gomes, S.H. Park, A.A. Kurzhanskiy, and S.-Y. Kho. Working paper.  2010

Macroscopic Modeling of Multiple Vehicle Types and Freeways with HOV Lanes
A.A. Kurzhanskiy and A. Muralidharan. Working paper. Online: : http://ucb-trans.org/topl/papers/2009_KurzhanskiyMuralidharan__ModelingHOV.pdf2009

Aurora – Object-Oriented Framework for Simulation and Analysis of Flow Networks
A.A. Kurzhanskiy, J. Kwon, and P. Varaiya. Working paper. Online: : http://ucb-trans.org/topl/papers/2008_AuroraFramework.pdf 2008

CTMSIM – An Interactive Macroscopic Traffic Simulator for MATLAB
A.A. Kurzhanskiy and P. Varaiya. Working paper. Online: http://ucb-trans.org/topl/papers/2008_KurzhanskiyVaraiya__CTMSIM.pdf

Ellipsoidal Toolbox
A.A. Kurzhanskiy and P. Varaiya. Technical Report 2006-46, EECS, UC Berkeley.  2006