Podcast: Driving towards an autonomous future

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Autonomous vehicles are coming soon but they won’t be exactly as we might imagine.

We are very much at the end of the beginning for self-driving vehicles, says Gavin Jackson, CEO of autonomous vehicle software company Oxbotica. What does he mean by this?

Gavin thinks that an autonomous future is on the horizon but rather than single occupancy robo-taxis zipping around cities, what will be mainstream first are self-driving industrial vehicles working in mining, construction, energy plants and so on.

“It completely changes the carbon footprint for those industries,” said Gavin. “Today, in those industries, in industrial, off public highway settings, autonomy is valuable.”

What Oxbotica itself is trying to do is make a one size fits all solution for all AVs.

Gavin likened it to an operating system for computers: What if Windows only worked on Dell laptops but not other PC brands? AV software should be interoperable and consistent like this, explained Gavin.

Their software is like an operating system “driving 600 tonne mining trucks to small delivery pods to shared mobility robo-shuttles in cities to on road trucks in the traditional sense”.

Unlike Tesla and Google, the difference is that Oxbotica doesn’t test its software in the real world. It is tested in the metaverse using adversarial AIs that throw “nightmare scenarios” at the self driving system.

Gavin Jackson, CEO, Oxbotica, was in conversation with Meagan Simpson, associate editor, BetaKit on the Auto/Tech and TalkRobot Stage at Collision 2022.

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Main image of Gavin Jackson, CEO, Oxbotica: Piaras Ó Mídheach/Web Summit (CC BY 2.0)

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