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Sebastian Thrun

Sebastian Thrun. By: Joseph Garrett Witowski CSCE 221H – Spring 2014. A (Brief) Biography. Born May 14, 1967 in Solingen, West Germany Graduated the University of Hildesheim, Germany in 1988 with a B.S. in CS, economics, medicine

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Sebastian Thrun

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  1. Sebastian Thrun By: Joseph Garrett Witowski CSCE 221H – Spring 2014

  2. A (Brief) Biography • Born May 14, 1967 in Solingen, West Germany • Graduated the University of Hildesheim, Germany in 1988 with a B.S. in CS, economics, medicine • 1995, obtained Ph.D. in CS and Statistics from University of Bonn, Germany

  3. Work History • In Academia: • 1998-2003: Carnegie Mellon University – Assistant and (since 2001) Associate Professor of CS, Robotics, and Automated Learning and Discovery • 2003-2007: Stanford University – Associate Professor of CS and (since 2006) EE • 2007-2011: Stanford University – Professor of CS and EE • 2011-present: Stanford University – Research Professor of CS • 2011-present: Google Fellow • In the corporate world: • 2007-present: Principal Engineer, Google Inc. • 2011-present: Google X Labs, Founder • 2012-present: Co-founder and CEO, Udacity

  4. Research Areas and Notable Projects • Probabilistic Robotics • MINERVA • FastSLAM • 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge, Stanford Racing Team Lead • Google’s Self-Driving Car • Google Street View • Udacity

  5. Robots and SLAM • SLAM • Simultaneous Localization and Mapping • 2 Aspects: Environment Mapping and Pose Estimation • Method: Take initial measurements, identify landmarks, move, update odometry-based position, re-measure and re-identify landmarks, extrapolate updated position from landmark data

  6. Thrun and FastSLAM • The “old way” of doing SLAM had some shortcomings • Slow – O(n2) in number of landmarks • Worked only for small environments • Had issues with Data Association • FastSLAM • Runs in logarithmic time (O(M logn)) • Can scale to large environments • Can handle dynamic environments

  7. Udacity • In 2011, Thrun offered his first e-course, “Online Introduction to Artificial Intelligence” from his living room • Over 160,000 people enrolled in the class • Thrun offered this class free of charge • In 2012, Thrun announced Udacity – originally offering “Massively Open Online Courses” (MOOC’s) • In 2013, Thrun stated Udacity had “a lousy product” and that courses would no longer be offered for free

  8. Awards and Recognitions • 2007 • Member, National Academy of Engineering • Member, German Academy of Sciences • 2008 • PC World list Best 100 Products of 2008 (Google Street View) • 2010 • IEEE ITSS Distinguished Researcher Award • 2011 • Max Planck Research Award • Huffington Post Best of TED 2011

  9. Opinions – “Why You Care” • Thrun’s research is revolutionary • His research and work is improving the world around us (think about street view) • The potential applications (and benefits) of his work go far beyond their apparent face-value • Robotic seeing-eye dogs? • Reduced traffic? • The possibilities are essentially limitless

  10. Work Cited "About Us." - Udacity. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Jan. 2014. <https://www.udacity.com/us>. "DARPA Grand Challenge." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 01 June 2014. Web. 20 Jan. 2014. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge>. Homepage Sebastian Thrun. Stanford, n.d. Web. 20 Jan. 2014. <http://robots.stanford.edu/>. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Jan. 2014. <http://robot.cc/images/SebastianThrun805.jpg>. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Jan. 2014. <http://www.weblogsinc.com/common/images/3060000000048647.JPG?0.543491337411244>. "Sebastian Thrun." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 19 Jan. 2014. Web. 20 Jan. 2014. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebastian_Thrun>. SLAM for Dummies: A Tutorial Approach to Simultaneous Localization and Mapping. Tech. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Jan. 2014. <http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/aeronautics-and-astronautics/16-412j-cognitive-robotics-spring-2005/projects/1aslam_blas_repo.pdf>. Thrun, Sebastian, and Michael Montemerlo. FastSLAM: A Factored Solution to the Simultaneous Localization and Mapping Problem. Tech. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Web. 20 Jan. 2014. <http://robots.stanford.edu/papers/montemerlo.fastslam-tr.pdf>. Thrun, Sebastian. Probabilistic Algorithms and the Interactive Museum Tour-Guide Robot Minerva. Tech. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Jan. 2014. <http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~thrun/papers/thrun.ijrr-minerva.pdf>. Thrun, Sebastian. "Sebastian Thrun's CV." N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Jan. 2014. <http://robots.stanford.edu/cv.pdf>. "Udacity's Sebastian Thrun, Godfather Of Free Online Education, Changes Course | Fast Company | Business Innovation." Fast Company. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Jan. 2014. <http://www.fastcompany.com/3021473/udacity-sebastian-thrun-uphill-climb>.

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