The Computing Innovation Fellows Project

Posted on: Wednesday, May 11th, 2011
Broad Research Area: AI / Machine Learning / Robotics / Vision

Research Interests:

I lead the Teamcore research group, which is focused on applying research in multiagent systems (MAS) to real-world problems and advancing fundamental research to address these needs. We are particularly interested in real-world problems of security, safety and sustainability. As such, we explore the full spectrum of approaches in MAS, making necessary breakthroughs in the one that best suits the application at hand.

Key examples of this use-inspired research include our ARMOR, IRIS and GUARDS systems. While ARMOR is focused on a game-theoretic application for security scheduling at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), IRIS does game-theoretic scheduling for the FAMS (Federal Air Marshals service) and GUARDS for the TSA (Transportation Security Administration). In this work, we created new algorithms for solving a class of game-theoretic games known as Stackelberg games to address efficiency concerns with existing techniques. Only in overcoming these challenges could we successfully produce a practical application for real-world use. Today, the ARMOR system has received numerous accolades and has been in use at LAX since August 2007. IRIS has been in use since October 2009 and GUARDS is being evaluated by the TSA for national deployment.

Our research in multiagent systems includes work in Belief-Desire-Intentions (BDI) systems, in Distributed Constraint Reasoning (DCR), and in Decision Theoretic and Game Theoretic approaches, a key aspect of our research is the interedisciplinary partnerships beyond Computer Science, such as with the Game theory and human behavior group.

Contact Information:

email obfuscated - click to reveal

213-740-6447

http://teamcore.usc.edu/tambe