I am Qichao (Leo) Liu, a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Logistics and Maritime Studies (LMS), The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. My research lies at the intersection of autonomous driving, intelligent transportation systems, and optimization. I am particularly interested in multi-vehicle cooperative control, trajectory planning and control, platoon systems, and risk-aware decision-making under uncertainty.

I received my PhD in Transportation Engineering from Southeast University, where I worked with Professors Jian Wang and Wei Wang. During my doctoral studies, I also participated in a joint training program at the University of Wisconsin–Madison under the supervision of Professor Sikai Chen. Prior to that, I obtained my Master of Engineering degree in Traffic System Engineering from the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology in January 2021, where I worked with Professor Jing Zhao.

My research seeks to combine control-theoretic, optimization-based, and data-driven approaches to develop scalable and practical solutions for complex transportation systems. More broadly, I am committed to advancing safe, efficient, and intelligent mobility through rigorous modeling, analysis, and algorithm design.

Research Interests

• Autonomous driving
• Trajectory planning and control
• Multi-vehicle cooperative control and platoon systems
• Risk-aware decision-making under uncertainty
• Optimization in intelligent transportation systems
• Traffic flow modeling and system operations

Representative Publications

Aggressiveness–Conservativeness Trade-off in Cooperative Driving: An Adaptive CBF Approach Under Perception Constraints
Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies, 2026
Qichao Liu, Jian Wang

📄 Paper

RiskNet: Interaction-Aware Risk Forecasting for Autonomous Driving in Long-Tail Scenarios
Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, 2026
Qichao Liu, Heye Huang, Shiyue Zhao, Lei Shi, Soyoung Ahn, Xiaopeng Li

📄 Paper 💻 Code

Cooperative Longitudinal Driving and Lane Assignment Strategy for Left-Turn Connected and Autonomous Vehicles at Signalized Intersections With a Contraflow Left-Turn Lane
IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, 2024
Qichao Liu, Jian Wang, Wei Wang, Xuedong Hua, Yuchuan Du

📄 Paper