ASIMO, the world’s first bi-pedal humanoid robot, “lived” just 22 years. But that brief time ushered in an era of robotic acceptance and innovation that has fueled progress in robotics, artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles and automation of all kinds. When Honda began researching humanoid robots in 1986, its engineers were interested in creating a walking…
This is the latest in our “Testing the Edge” series, focusing on ingenious ways that the Structured Test team at Argo AI tests different components, systems, and scenarios for self-driving cars. A cooler on wheels isn’t an uncommon sight at cookouts and tailgates across the United States, especially during football season. But a cooler that can…
Seven years ago, I was a self-driving skeptic. Not of the technology. Of all the “experts” promising autonomous vehicles would be everywhere by 2020. You didn’t need to be Nostradamus to know that was ridiculous. All you needed was some common sense. By the time I was proven right, I was one year on the…
One of the many things I learned in my two decades in the engineering profession is that communication is not a strength of most engineers — at least to those that aren’t engineers. They tend to use way too many technical terms to express concepts in ways that come across as an alien language to…
People often ask me who is winning the self-driving car race: Is it Tesla? GM? Google? Nvidia? You guys at Argo? Some of the folks asking are investors. Some are looking for a job. All of them are trying to evaluate the state of the self-driving sector. But all of them are using the wrong framing device. If…
Consider the hours of labor required to map an as-yet uncharted area of the ocean floor. You’d have to sail for weeks just to reach some of the waters to be mapped, and a crewed vessel heading out into the big wide open needs to carry enough fuel for the boat and supplies for the…
