NVIDIA and New York University (specifically, it’s well-regarded deep-learning research team) are partnering for a new research collaboration focused around the development of autonomous driving technologies, according to a new press release.
The new research collaboration will be based out of NVIDIA’s new auto-technology office in New Jersey.
“NYU’s researchers will work with NVIDIA scientists and engineers to create groundbreaking autonomous driving technology. The collaboration between NVIDIA, a leader in deep learning infrastructure and tools, and NYU’s world-class deep-learning faculty will accelerate the development of autonomous vehicles,” the press release states.
“The team will extend the current NVIDIA learning system to encompass all aspects of autonomous driving. A key aspect of the approach is eliminating the need for hand-programmed rules and procedures — such as finding lane markings, guardrails or other cars. This avoids the creation of a near infinite number of ‘if, then, else’ statements, which is impractical to code when trying to account for the randomness that occurs on the road.”
Amongst those involved in the new research collaboration are: Urs Muller (chief architect-autonomous driving at NVIDIA); NYU Professor Yann LeCun (a deep learning pioneer and inventor of learned convolutional neural networks); and Larry Jackel (machine learning advisor for NVIDIA and a former DARPA program manager).
The 3 previously worked together in the early 1990s at Bell Labs on handwritten character recognition (arguably the first commercial application of deep-learning technology). LeCun and Muller also previously worked together on various DARPA programs, including: the original DAVE (DARPA Autonomous Vehicle), LAGR (Learning Applied to Ground Robots) and other deep learning technologies.
The new office in New Jersey was formerly a Bell Labs facility.
Notably, NVIDIA products are used in Tesla vehicles, but Tesla has its own deep-learning program in place for autopilot.
