Road-Mapping Innovation

Over Coffee® is on hiatus through the Christmas holidays.  We’ll be rebroadcasting some of our most popular episodes of 2017.  Thank you for listening–and be sure to be with us for our coverage of CES 2018!

Where are we headed, with autonomous vehicles?

Michigan Applied Robotics Group co-founder Rourke Pattullo is participating in answering that question.  And that response keeps evolving.

Rourke, who is majoring in electrical engineering at the University of Michigan, is currently spending a semester in Shanghai as part of the Michigan Engineers Abroad program.

We had the opportunity to meet and chat at the 2017 Sensors Expo in San Jose, in June, after Rourke participated in the "Sense Technologies" panel during the new "Automotive and Autonomous Vehicles Sensors Workshop".   At the time, Rourke had been serving as vice-president of the university's autonomous-boat team, UM: Autonomy.

Prior to leaving for his fall semester in China, Rourke talked about his background, the University of Michigan's innovations in the area of autonomous vehicles, and his vision for the future.
On this edition of Over Coffee®, you’ll hear:

How Rourke’s background led to his interest in autonomous vehicles;

The test conditions self-driving cars face, in the University of Michigan's  “Mcity”;

Some of the technologies that may enable future self-driving cars;

How the Michigan Applied Robotics Group came into being;

How UM Autonomy used their problem-solving skills to implement a critical technology for autonomous boats;

The first areas in which UM students learn, while constructing autonomous vehicles;

Some of the obstacles researchers have found, to making self-driving vehicles a daily reality;

The two reactions Rourke hears from the general public, about the idea of autonomous vehicles;

Myths, versus the realities, of "smart" vehicles;

Rourke’s favorite funny experience, which illustrates one of the “human-nature” obstacles to implementing self-driving cars;

Some of the considerations involved in implementing the new technology in urban areas;

Rourke’s projections of the role of autonomous vehicles in two different areas, ten years in the future;

And, how engineers are designing self-driving cars to deal with weather challenges.