Show Daily (XPO 2021)

Show Daily (XPO 2021)

Robotics pioneer ponders: Where are all of the robots?

As co-founder of the Amazon Prime Air delivery-by-drone project, groundbreaking technologist Gur Kimchi has done more than his part to usher in a reality full of robots. But in his keynote Thursday, Kimchi posed what he called a key question: Why aren’t there more? “I have been irritating my friends for literally a decade with this question,” he joked. “Why aren’t there more robots? Where are they?” Kimchi’s resume includes 10 years at Microsoft during which he helped to develop Virtual Earth & Bing Maps, contextual and geosocial search, cloud infrastructure, augmented and virtual reality, and enterprise communications. He also served on the board of Waze, was an early developer of VoIP technology, and was a co-founding member of the FAA Drone Advisory Committee.

Fitting In: People, Privacy, and Public Acceptance of Unmanned and Autonomous Systems

XPONENTIAL 2021 ended its last day with a host of panel discussions about the impending challenges for autonomous and unmanned systems to fit in with our society and gain public acceptance.  The innovation of autonomous vehicles and systems is exciting and disruptive.  However, full social acceptance and adoption has specific challenges.   Developing a Workforce for Tomorrow's Industry

Zipline co-founder urges regulatory updates to speed benefits of drone delivery to Americans who need healthcare

To support the autonomous revolution, the United States will need signifcant changes to existing regulatory frameworks, Zipline CEO Keller Rinaudo told XPONENTIAL 2021 attendees in his keynote Thursday.   “Everyone in this room has tried making small, incremental improvements or changes to the system over the past nine years,” said the 34-year-old entrepreneur, who co-founded the medical delivery-by-drone company in 2014.  

WINNERS OF THE 2021 AUVSI CHAPTER/MEMBER OF THE YEAR AWARDS ANNOUNCED AT XPONENTIAL IN ATLANTA

The winners of the 2021 AUVSI Chapter/Member of the Year Awards were announced at XPONENTIAL in Atlanta on Thursday, Aug. 19.   AUVSI North Carolina was named the Chapter of the Year. Gary Bullock of the AUVSI Indiana chapter was named Chapter Leader of the Year.  

Supporting the Next Generation of Autonomy with Policy and Governance

XPONENTIAL 2021's second day move forward with a sprite momentum focused on policy and governance, and their crucial role in advancing the future of autonomous systems. Michelle Duquette, portfolio manager and outcome leader for UAS operations at The MITRE Corporation opened the first panel discussion by connecting the topic of policy and governance with the previous day's technology discussion. She brought attention to her observations of technology discussions by stating a recurrent theme: "Innovation is outpacing regulation." But to that, she added another observation: "What if policy required to enable such innovation doesn't quite exist? And what existing policy is available today?"

Air Force to accelerate R&D through AFWERX

Air Force Col. Nathan Diller, director of AFWERX, explained in a keynote Wednesday his organization aims to transform capability development in the Air Force by lowering barriers to partnerships with the private sector.

Ethicist sketches 4 models of ‘ethics by design’ for AI decision-making, calling for education and collaboration before programming

As we progress further into a world with decision-making machines, pioneering AI ethicist Dr. Paul Root Wolpe urged XPONENTIAL attendees in his keynote Wednesday not to let ethics be an afterthought.   “It has to be ethics by design,” said Wolpe, director of  Emory University’s Center for Ethics. Wolpe, whose career has included 17 years as NASA’s first senior bioethicist, emphasized that humans have a lot of collaborative decisions to make about the values they want machines to consider and how those values should be weighted when they inevitably come into conflict.

On the Road to Assured Autonomy

AUSVI's XPONENTIAL 2021 in Atlanta, Georgia, began day one with a focus on technology and an accent on how technology affords assured autonomy.  Panelists and speakers focused on the challenge of serving assured autonomy, delving into the processes and methodologies to ensure safe and practical systems for autonomous systems.    Panels tackled the issues via various topics.  These included framing assured autonomy and developing ways to best think about assured autonomy.  What is the best approach to safety?  And how should these approaches influence the development of technology?  

Singh offers big-picture frameworks for thinking about assured autonomy

Dr. Sanjiv Singh drew on a multifaceted career in autonomy to offer several high-level frameworks for thinking about what it will take to realize the potential in unmanned aerial systems safely. Singh, a consulting professor at the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University , began his career in 1985 working on the first autonomous ground vehicles to operate outdoors. Among other accomplishments, he led a team in 2010 that demonstrated the first full-scale autonomous helicopter capable of take-off, landing zone evaluation and safe descent.

FAA chief hails industry collaboration as part of regulatory path to trusted integration, including progress on BVLOS

In a keynote titled “Leading to Trusted Integration,” FAA Administrator Steve Dickson raised hopes of progress by the end of the year toward new beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) rules.   But first, he invoked the vocabulary of aviation to acknowledge that regulation is often seen as a “drag” on the unmanned aerial systems (UAS) industry’s momentum. Dickson, a former commercial pilot and vice president of Delta Air Lines, admitted to having “had my own opinions” on the subject of regulatory drag earlier in his career.

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