This talk will introduce the audience into the fascinating
world of robotics cars. Most of us use cars in our daily lives; yet
cars are inefficient, unsafe, and environmentally wasteful. Robotic
technology promises to overcome some of these shortcomings, by making
cars safer; drivers more productive; and also by reducing the burden
to the environment by enabling new models of car sharing. Thrun will
present Stanford's research on the basic artificial intelligence
behind this new emerging technology. In particular, Dr. Thrun will report
from two recent autonomous car competitions, organized by DARPA, and
dubbed "Grand Challenge" and "Urban Challenge." Machine perception,
computer vision, machine learning, and probabilistic computation all
play major roles in the design of these systems. Thrun will shed light ontp
the inner workings of these
robots, and discuss the impact of self-driving cars on society once
the technology is sufficiently matured.
Sebastian Thrun is a Professor of Computer Science and Electrical
Engineering at Stanford University, where he directs the Stanford
Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Thrun's research focuses on
Artificial Intelligence and Robotics. He is probably best known for
his victory in the DARPA Grand Challenge, and his second place finish
in the DARPA Urban Challenge - both robotic competition organized by
the US Government to foster the field of autonomous robotics. Thrun
has published 11 books, over 300 technical papers, and has won
numerous awards, including most recently the Science Prize of the City
of Braunschweig, Germany. Thrun is an elected member of the National
Academy of Engineering (USA) and of the German Academy of Sciences.
