Abstract

In spite of the obvious benefits of the automobile, it inflicts terrible costs. Each year Americans spend billions of hours stuck in traffic, and 30,000 people lose their lives in traffic fatalities. Much of this waste is due to the least reliable component in the driving system: the driver. For decades, futurists have dreamed of self-driving cars, and recent advances in computing and sensor technology are finally putting that dream within reach.

Google has developed a fleet of self-driving vehicles which have driven over 500,000 miles in real-world conditions. We'll discuss the history vehicle automation and see what makes Google's approach different. You'll see how the car understands the world and hear about the our approach to mobile communication, as well as other developments in automative communication.

Bio

Andrew leads the offboard software and mapping efforts for Google's self-driving cars. He joined the project in 2009 and has helped the team achieve over 500,000 miles of autonomous driving. He joined Google in 2002. Prior to working on cars, he worked on web indexing and job scheduling systems at Google. He is a graduate of Duke University.