Keynote Speakers

  • Building and Validating Safety Critical Systems

    Building robust decision making systems for autonomous systems is challenging. Decisions must be made based on imperfect information about the environment and with uncertainty about how the environment will evolve. In addition, these systems must carefully balance safety with other considerations, such as operational efficiency. Typically, the space of edge cases is vast, placing a large burden on human designers to anticipate problem scenarios and develop ways to resolve them. This talk discusses major challenges associated with ensuring computational tractability and establishing trust that our systems will behave correctly when deployed in the real world. We will outline some methodologies for addressing these challenges and point to some research applications that can serve as inspiration for building safer systems.

  • Scott Moura: The Future of Transportation is Automated, Connected & Electrified

    This talk discusses the challenges and opportunities for improving the safety and energy efficiency of mobility
    systems. We first review the overarching trends and challenges posed by decarbonization and safety, the key
    motivators for automation, connectivity, and electrification. Next, we examine if automated vehicles providing
    ride-hailing services in San Francisco are safer than Uber vehicles. Next, we discuss the NEXTCAR project,
    which seeks to reduce energy consumption in an EV by 30% by leveraging connectivity and automation. The
    final section will discuss SlrpEV – Smart Learning Research Pilot for Electric Vehicle charging stations, which
    addresses the challenges of public/workplace charging infrastructure. We close with perspectives on future
    challenges and opportunities.