Keynote Speakers
Moderator: Aloke Roy (Honeywell)
Nicholas Roy
Nicholas Roy is the Bisplinghoff Professor of Aeronautics & Astronautics and a member of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received his B.Sc. in Physics and Cognitive Science in 1995 and his M.Sc. in Computer Science in 1997, both from McGill University. He received his Ph. D. in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon University in 2003. He has made research contributions to planning under uncertainty, machine learning, human-computer interaction, and aerial robotics. He founded and led Project Wing at Google [X] from 2012-2014. He is currently the director of the Bridge, in MIT's Quest for Intelligence, focused on the science and engineering of intelligence and applying new advances in artificial intelligence broadly to all engineering and science disciplines.
Title: Autonomous Flight in Urban environments: Challenges for Perception and Planning
Description: Small UAS have tremendous promise for providing many different services in urban environments, such as inspection or delivery. But, autonomous flight in the urban environment also brings substantial challenges in terms of sensing, perception and decision making. Small UAS need to be able to understand where they are and what is around them to a much greater degree than ever before. I will talk about recent progress in perception and planning for small UAS, and what the next generation of onboard autonomy may look like.
Chris Benson
Chris Benson is Principal Emerging Technologies Strategist at Lockheed Martin, where he focuses on (or previously focused on) bleeding-edge technologies and topics such as artificial intelligence, autonomy, AI ethics, high-performance computing (AI supercomputers), and containerized DevSecOps. Outside of Lockheed Martin, he is Co-Host of the Practical AI podcast, the Organizer of the Atlanta Deep Learning Meetup, and a prolific international keynote speaker.
Title: Artificial Intelligence and Autonomy: State of the Union
Description: Chris Benson has worked in artificial intelligence for Lockheed Martin, Honeywell, and Accenture, and is the organizer of the Atlanta Deep Learning Meetup. He is the cohost of the popular Practical AI podcast, which reaches hundreds of thousands of listeners, and often features luminaries from the global AI community. His diversity of experiences lends him a distinct perspective regarding the advancement of artificial intelligence for autonomy.
Chris will offer a 'state of the union' for AI-driven autonomy that spans industries, tying together the technical underpinnings of both civilian and military use cases. He will explore the capabilities and limitations of existing AI approaches, and address their implications for future generations of autonomous endeavors.
As a case study, DARPA's recent Alphadogfight demonstrated that existing AI architectures are already able to beat highly-proficient human pilots in constrained simulations, which has enormous implications for the future - both military and civilian - including the developing relationship between humans and the AIs we create.
