Autonomous Systems: TCE Conference 2019

Invitation to the Media

TCE Conference 2019 on Autonomous Systems

September 11th, 2019

With the participation of world experts and representatives from Ford, Audi, and Elbit

This coming Wednesday, September 11, 2019 the TCE Conference on the subject of autonomous systems will be held at the Technion in Haifa. The conference will address an array of topics within the field of autonomous systems on land and in the air, including cars, drones, and more. The conference is led by two Technion faculty: Prof. Alex Bronstein of the Faculty of Computer Science and Prof. Guy Gilboa from the Viterbi Faculty of Electrical Engineering.

The conference will cover issues around the movement of autonomous systems in unfamiliar environments. This includes such topics as sensors, location and navigation. Prof. Daniel Cremers from the Technical University in Munich will present computer vision technologies that are essential to autonomous movement. Prof. Shie Mannor of the Technion, will introduce the learning process for autonomous systems. Prof Manor leads a new division at Ford which is developing the decision-making system for the company’s future autonomous vehicles. Prof. Vadim Indelman from the Technion, an expert in autonomous sensors and the navigation of robots and robot groups, will lecture on autonomous perception and navigation under conditions of uncertainty. Prof. Dan Feldman from Haifa University will present mathematical tools for the navigation of a swarm of drones. Ohad Menashe from Audi will speak about sensory systems for formula cars. Yona Coscas, head of AI at Elbit, will present simulation tools for training autonomous agents.

“The field of autonomous systems is advancing rapidly, thanks in part to very close cooperation between academia and industry. The economic and technological capabilities of industry, together with the in-depth research that are only possible in academia, create a combination that accelerates development in the field, and in the upcoming conference we will also present this important connection,” says conference organizer Prof. Bronstein. “Artificial intelligence is entering every field of technology, but when it comes to vehicles and aircraft, we are very limited – we do not have the possibility to let the systems learn from failures and crashes. It’s not chess, where the computer can lose a million times before playing well. Therefore, in the context of autonomous systems, it is very important to develop simulation tools that will improve the system before it goes out into the field.”

According to Prof. Gilboa: “There are major technological challenges in building high-quality and reliable autonomous systems. Like the human senses, these systems also have ‘senses,’ relying on various cameras and sensors (optic, thermal, radar and more) to absorb information from the environment. Analyzing the vast amount of high-quality, real-time information is a major challenge, especially in small systems whose computing power is limited. Therefore, research collaboration between academia and industry will greatly contribute to furthering the issue in the country.”

Since autonomous vehicles are based on artificial intelligence, they raise significant questions in the araa of cybersecurity. This issue will be addressed by Dr. Guy Sagy from Karamba Security, which developed a technology to prevent cyber-attacks and hostile takeover of autonomous vehicles; and Yonatan Appel from Upstream Security, which has developed a cloud platform for protecting connected cars and autonomous vehicles.

For the full conference program: https://www.cs.technion.ac.il/TCE19/program.html

The conference will be held on September 11 at 08:15-17:00 in the Taub Auditorium – Faculty of Computer Science Building.