[agents] Two PhD positions in agent-based traffic simulation / computational social choice theory

[Jörg P. Müller]

Applications are invited for two fully-funded PhD doctoral positions
("wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiter") in  the Research Training Group (RTG)
"SocialCars: Cooperative (De-)centralized Traffic Management". 
SocialCars is
funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). The positions are 
available from
May 2017 for a duration of three years.

The overall objective of the interdisciplinary SocialCars RTG is to 
research new
methods and applications of decentralized, cooperative traffic 
management, with
particular focus on the impact of new technologies such as autonomous 
vehicles
and Car2X communication have on traffic management.

--
PhD Topic 1 - Scalable agent-based simulation of mixed traffic using 
cognitive agent models:

In this dissertation you will join our efforts to develop a scalable,
high-performance agent-based simulation environment and to make it 
usable for
more realistic simulation of mixed urban traffic. You will work on/with the
LightJason BDI platform (http://lightjason.org), analyze mixed urban 
traffic
systems involving e.g. pedestrians, cyclists, (autonomous) vehicles, and 
public
transport; you will research new models and algorithms, and extend the 
platform
with required features. You will work with methods and technologies such as
object-oriented and logic programming, machine learning, Big Data 
processing,
agile software development, or high-performance / cluster computing.
You should bring good object-oriented/distributed systems programming 
skills;
knowledge in (traffic) simulation or multiagent systems is desirable.

--
PhD Topic 2 - Online coordination of same day delivery with mixed 
autonomous fleets:

How can we avoid one customer being serviced multiple times a day by 
different
delivery service providers like DHL, UPS, Hermes ...? And how can we do 
this in
a near future where autonomous micro-vehicles (pods) perform home 
delivery tasks
on behalf of different service providers? In this work, you will 
research the
use of agreement technologies (e.g. voting, auctions, games, coalitions,
incentives) for solving coordination problems in city logistics. You 
shall study
coordination problems at the operational level, e.g. micropods belonging to
different service providers forming a convoy and agreeing on route 
schedules,
having to reconcile differing priorities. You will work with selected 
models and methods
from algorithmic decision theory and social choice theory and apply them to
real-world coordination problems. Together with researchers from operations
research you will also study how agreement technologies can interact with
traditional optimization methods.

--

We are looking for strong candidates with a university degree in computer
science or similar discipline. Successful candidates will join an
interdisciplinary team of twelve PhD candidates; therefore, you should enjoy
working with people from other research disciplines, such as psychology, 
traffic
planning, operations research.

Candidates will find an excellent open research environment on the 
premises of
the Automotive Research Center Niedersachsen (NFF) in Braunschweig; at 
the same
time, they will be part of the research group of Prof. Jörg Müller at TU
Clausthal, and spend some of their time there.

Applications in German or English language should be submitted by email 
(one pdf
document) to bewerbungen at socialcars.org until January 02, 2017;
shortlisted candidates will be invited to an applicant’s workshop on 
February
02, 2017 in Hannover, Germany.

The complete job posting for the RTG with detailed information of how to 
apply
is available at http://www.socialcars.org/openings.html

A list with descriptions of all PhD topics are available at
http://www.socialcars.org/doctoral-projects.html

Please direct enquiries to joerg.mueller at tu-clausthal.de.