ABSTRACT
This talk will describe some of the challenges and opportunities in autonomy research today, with a focus on trends and lessons in self-driving research. We will discuss some of the major challenges and research opportunities in self-driving, including building and maintaining high-resolution maps, interacting with humans both inside and outside of vehicles, dealing with adverse weather, and achieving sufficiently high detection with low probabilities of false alarms in challenging settings. We will review the different approaches to automated driving, including SAE Level 2 and SAE Level 4 systems, as well as the Toyota Guardian approach, which flips the conventional mindset from having the human guard the AI (as in SAE Level 2 systems). to instead using AI to guard the human driver. We will discuss research opportunities in mapping, localization, perception, prediction, and planning and control to realize improved safety through advanced automation in the future.