Chris Urmson: Perspectives on Self-Driving Cars

Chris Urmson, CEO & co-founder Aurora
Perspectives on Self-Driving Cars
Abstract:
Self-driving vehicles will save millions of lives, make cities more liveable, save resources, and transform transportation to be more accessible and enjoyable for everyone. Despite a decade of rapid advancement in the state-of-the-art, perception of the technology still lands somewhere between solved and unsolveable.
Over the last decade I’ve had the chance to have a front row seat, watching the technology and industry evolve. In this talk I will share perspectives on the technology, the players and what the future holds.
Bio:
Chris Urmson is the co-founder and CEO of Aurora, a company focused on making self-driving cars a reality. Chris led Google’s self-driving car program and was a member of the faculty of the Robotics Institute.
His research focused on motion planning and perception for robotic vehicles. During his time at Carnegie Mellon, he worked with house size trucks, drove robots around in deserts, and was part of the DARPA Urban and Grand Challenge teams. Chris earned his PhD in 2005 from Carnegie Mellon and his BSc in computer engineering from the University of Manitoba in 1998.
The Yata Memorial Lecture in Robotics is part of the School of Computer Science Distinguished Lecture Series. Teruko Yata was a postdoctoral fellow in the Robotics Institute from 2000 until her untimely death in 2002. After graduating from the University of Tsukuba, working under the guidance of Prof. Yuta, she came to the United States. At Carnegie Mellon, she served as a post-doctoral fellow in the Robotics Institute for three years, under Chuck Thorpe. Teruko’s accomplishments in the field of ultrasonic sensing were highly regarded and won her the Best Student Paper Award at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation in 1999. It was frequently noted, and we always remember, that “the quality of her work was exceeded only by her kindness and thoughtfulness as a friend.” Join us in paying tribute to our extraordinary colleague and friend through this most unique and excitin