Transcript ppt
Sebastian Thrun By: Joseph Garrett Witowski CSCE 221H – Spring 2014 A (Brief) Biography • Born May 14, 1967 in Solingen, West Germany • Graduated the University of Hildesheim, Germany in 1988 with a B.S. in CS, economics, medicine • 1995, obtained Ph.D. in CS and Statistics from University of Bonn, Germany Work History • In Academia: – 1998-2003: Carnegie Mellon University – Assistant and (since 2001) Associate Professor of CS, Robotics, and Automated Learning and Discovery – 2003-2007: Stanford University – Associate Professor of CS and (since 2006) EE – 2007-2011: Stanford University – Professor of CS and EE – 2011-present: Stanford University – Research Professor of CS – 2011-present: Google Fellow • In the corporate world: – 2007-present: Principal Engineer, Google Inc. – 2011-present: Google X Labs, Founder – 2012-present: Co-founder and CEO, Udacity Research Areas and Notable Projects • • • • Probabilistic Robotics MINERVA FastSLAM 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge, Stanford Racing Team Lead • Google’s Self-Driving Car • Google Street View • Udacity Robots and SLAM • SLAM – Simultaneous Localization and Mapping – 2 Aspects: Environment Mapping and Pose Estimation – Method: Take initial measurements, identify landmarks, move, update odometry-based position, re-measure and re-identify landmarks, extrapolate updated position from landmark data Thrun and FastSLAM • The “old way” of doing SLAM had some shortcomings – Slow – O(n2) in number of landmarks – Worked only for small environments – Had issues with Data Association • FastSLAM – Runs in logarithmic time (O(M logn)) – Can scale to large environments – Can handle dynamic environments Udacity • In 2011, Thrun offered his first e-course, “Online Introduction to Artificial Intelligence” from his living room – Over 160,000 people enrolled in the class – Thrun offered this class free of charge • In 2012, Thrun announced Udacity – originally offering “Massively Open Online Courses” (MOOC’s) • In 2013, Thrun stated Udacity had “a lousy product” and that courses would no longer be offered for free Awards and Recognitions • 2007 – Member, National Academy of Engineering – Member, German Academy of Sciences • 2008 – PC World list Best 100 Products of 2008 (Google Street View) • 2010 – IEEE ITSS Distinguished Researcher Award • 2011 – Max Planck Research Award – Huffington Post Best of TED 2011 Opinions – “Why You Care” • Thrun’s research is revolutionary • His research and work is improving the world around us (think about street view) • The potential applications (and benefits) of his work go far beyond their apparent face-value – Robotic seeing-eye dogs? – Reduced traffic? • The possibilities are essentially limitless Work Cited "About Us." - Udacity. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Jan. 2014. <https://www.udacity.com/us>. "DARPA Grand Challenge." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 01 June 2014. Web. 20 Jan. 2014. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge>. Homepage Sebastian Thrun. Stanford, n.d. Web. 20 Jan. 2014. <http://robots.stanford.edu/>. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Jan. 2014. <http://robot.cc/images/SebastianThrun805.jpg>. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Jan. 2014. <http://www.weblogsinc.com/common/images/3060000000048647.JPG?0.543491337411244>. "Sebastian Thrun." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 19 Jan. 2014. Web. 20 Jan. 2014. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebastian_Thrun>. SLAM for Dummies: A Tutorial Approach to Simultaneous Localization and Mapping. Tech. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Jan. 2014. <http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/aeronautics-and-astronautics/16-412j-cognitive-robotics-spring2005/projects/1aslam_blas_repo.pdf>. Thrun, Sebastian, and Michael Montemerlo. FastSLAM: A Factored Solution to the Simultaneous Localization and Mapping Problem. Tech. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Web. 20 Jan. 2014. <http://robots.stanford.edu/papers/montemerlo.fastslam-tr.pdf>. Thrun, Sebastian. Probabilistic Algorithms and the Interactive Museum Tour-Guide Robot Minerva. Tech. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Jan. 2014. <http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~thrun/papers/thrun.ijrr-minerva.pdf>. Thrun, Sebastian. "Sebastian Thrun's CV." N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Jan. 2014. <http://robots.stanford.edu/cv.pdf>. "Udacity's Sebastian Thrun, Godfather Of Free Online Education, Changes Course | Fast Company | Business Innovation." Fast Company. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Jan. 2014. <http://www.fastcompany.com/3021473/udacitysebastian-thrun-uphill-climb>.