Dr Gill Pratt – Executive Technical Advisor, Toyota

At a press conference in Palo Alto, California today, Toyota announced a new collaborative research program that will focus on development of artificial intelligence and automation control systems. Under the auspices of Toyota’s Collaborative Safety Research Center (CSRC), the $50 million development program will pull in researchers from Toyota, Stanford University and MIT to help develop the systems that will be required to power increasingly autonomous cars. The effort will be led by Dr. Gill Pratt who is joining Toyota as an executive technical advisor. Pratt previously served as the program manager for the DARPA robotics challenge which brought the world the “big dog” robot from Boston Dynamics.

As outlined by Kiyotaka Ise, TMC Senior Managing Officer and Chief Officer, R&D Group, the goal of Toyota’s efforts is to ultimately eliminate the accidents that cause more than 30,000 fatalities annually in the United States and more than 1 million globally. By adding increasing levels of automation, Toyota hopes to make driving safer without actually eliminating the joy of driving. In previous conversations with Toyota officials they have made clear that they don’t see a future anytime soon where there are no human drivers.  Instead they expect to develop semi-autonomous systems that will take over in scenarios such as boring highway drives or stop and go traffic. Toyota is already expanding availability of driver assist features such as lane departure warning and prevention and adaptive cruise control and has said they will launch an advanced highway driving assist system in Japan in 2016.

Prototype Lexus GS with advanced highway driving assist during the 2014 ITS World Congress

The CSRC which began in 2011 has always had a strategy of sharing the findings of its research and Ise-san indicated that Toyota plans to share this AI research as well. The goal of the efforts is to improve sensing and perception systems, machine learning, decision making and human centric interaction. One of the major issues with autonomous systems is programming ethics into the controls and enhancing AI so that machines can learn from humans and adapt to changing conditions. While humans are far from flawless, they are currently far more capable of dealing with the many nuances that crowd real-world situations than machines. An example is the recent reports of Google’s autonomous cars being confused by riders on fixed-gear bicycles that are constantly making small movements even while standing still. A human can look at this instantly recognize the situation and respond accordingly. There are endless scenarios where machines must deal with subtleties and be able to make better decisions than they can today.

Another major problem is the complete inability of all current autonomous vehicles to operate in poor weather. MIT Professor Daniela Rus discussed the need to enhance the ability of control and sensing systems deal with rain, snow and poorly maintained roads.

While Toyota doesn’t expect driverless cars to completely take over anytime soon, enhancements to driver assist systems can enable increased mobility for drivers with physical limitations including the elderly. Until the day when the computers and robots do take over completely they will need to coexist with humans and this research will hopefully make that process smoother.

You can see the whole press conference here

Toyota Establishes Collaborative Research Centers with MIT and Stanford to Accelerate Artificial Intelligence Research

• Toyota will invest $50 million to broaden its focus on computer science and human-machine interaction with an immediate goal of reducing highway injuries and fatalities
• Dr. Gill A. Pratt joins Toyota to direct overall collaborative effort at the research centers
• Professor Daniela Rus to lead joint research center at MIT
• Professor Fei-Fei Li to lead joint research center at StanfordSeptember 04, 2015
  Palo Alto, Calif., Sept. 4, 2015 — The research and development of intelligent vehicle and mobility technologies will get a major boost in an ambitious new collaboration between Toyota, Stanford and MIT. At a press conference today, Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC) announced that it will be investing approximately $50 million over the next 5 years to establish joint research centers at each university. Additionally Dr. Gill Pratt, former Program Manager at DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) and leader of its recent Robotics Challenge, has joined Toyota to direct and accelerate these research activities and their application to intelligent vehicles and robotics.As we age, mobility becomes more challenging; and larger segments of society are unable to drive or move freely. Also, the demands on healthcare systems and those who support the physically infirm continue to increase. Toyota believes the opportunities to improve every-day living through artificial intelligence supported technologies are boundless, with significant breakthrough potential for the development of life-saving intelligent vehicles and life-improving robots.Kiyotaka Ise, TMC Senior Managing Officer and Chief Officer, R&D Group, said: “We’re here today to mark the beginning of an unprecedented commitment. We will initially focus on the acceleration of intelligent vehicle technology, with the immediate goal of helping eliminate traffic casualties and the ultimate goal of helping improve quality of life through enhanced mobility and robotics. This partnership, led by Dr. Pratt, is a great opportunity to work with two leading research teams from two top universities. I am very excited about what this new venture means for Toyota, and I look forward to more announcements in the future.”Dr. Gill Pratt said, “This bold collaboration will address extremely complex mobility challenges using ground breaking artificial intelligence research. I’m thrilled to be a part of the synergies and talent-sharing of Toyota, MIT, and Stanford. Key program areas will be addressed by the two university campuses and Toyota, with combined research targeted at improving the ability of intelligent vehicle technologies to recognize objects around the vehicle in diverse environments, provide elevated judgment of surrounding conditions, and safely collaborate with vehicle occupants, other vehicles, and pedestrians. The joint research will also look at applications of the same technology to human-interactive robotics and information service.”Research at MIT will be led by Professor Daniela Rus, Andrew (1956) and Erna Viterbi Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Director of the Institute’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). “Our team will collaborate with Stanford and Toyota to develop advanced architectures that allow cars to better perceive and navigate their surroundings in order to make safe driving decisions,” said Professor Rus. “These efforts will play a major role in helping reduce traffic casualties, and potentially even helping us develop a vehicle incapable of getting into a collision.”

  Led by Professor Fei-Fei Li, Director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (SAIL), the Stanford-based research center will collaborate with MIT and Toyota to develop advanced intelligent systems to recognize, understand and act in complex traffic environments. “Building on Stanford’s expertise with computer vision, machine learning, large-scale data analysis and human-computer interaction, our team will work to help intelligent vehicles recognize objects in the road, predict behaviors of things and people, and make safe and smart driving decisions under diverse conditions,” said Professor Li.

  Beyond Toyota’s longstanding work on autonomous vehicles and advanced driving support systems, the company has been developing robots for industrial use since the 1970s, and for Partner and Human Support Robot applications since the 2000s. This collaborative effort will open up new avenues for systems and product development across a broad range of mobility applications.