Bringing AI Up To Speed
Speaker: Prof. Madhur Behl (University of Virginia)
Location: Nvidia Auditorium (link)
Attendance Link: https://tinyurl.com/robosem-win-26
Time: Friday Jan 30th, 3:00-4:00PM
Abstract:
Despite decades of advancement, autonomous driving systems have not met the high expectations set by many. What’s missing is physical intelligence - the ability of AI systems to reason, react, and adapt in real time, while operating safely and effectively within the laws of physics. In this talk, I will first examine which hurdles have turned out to be more formidable than expected, and share our research on how to refine testing methodologies to advance the safety of autonomous vehicles. I will then show how high-speed autonomous racing provides a unique proving ground to test the boundaries of AI’s physical capabilities. Leveraging more than a decade of experience in high-speed autonomous racing, particularly with the full-scale Cavalier Autonomous Racing Indy car and the F1tenth platform, I will demonstrate how racing at high speeds and in close proximity to other vehicles exposes unsolved challenges in perception, planning, and control. I will recount our journey from the lab to lap times, and the rigorous engineering required to build a full-scale autonomous racecar from scratch. Despite progress, autonomous racing has yet to match the skill of expert human drivers or master the complexity of dense, multi-car competition; indicating that we still have several more laps to go on our path toward artificial general “driving” intelligence.
Bio:
Dr. Madhur Behl is an Associate Professor in the department of Computer Science at the University of Virginia and an Amazon Scholar. His research spans robotics, autonomous systems, and cyber-physical systems, with a focus on physical AI, autonomous driving, and high-speed decision making. He is the founder and team principal for UVA’s Cavalier Autonomous Racing team. He also co-founded the F1Tenth (now Roboracer) autonomous racing platform and the international F1Tenth Grand Prix competitions. Dr. Behl received his Ph.D. (2015) and M.S. (2012) in Electrical and Systems Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania. He is an IEEE Senior Member and the recipient of the NSF CAREER Award. He holds multiple editorial roles spanning the Journal of Field Robotics, IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L), ACM Transactions on Cyber Physical Systems (TCPS), and the SAE Journal of Connected and Automated Vehicles - covering the spectrum of robotics, autonomy, and CPS. He has been the Program Co-Chair (2024) and General Chair (2025) of the ACM/IEEE International Conference on Cyber-Physical Systems (ICCPS). His work has received multiple Best Paper Awards at top venues including IROS, ACC, ICCPS, and BuildSys, as well as major honors such as first place in the DOE Cleantech Prize (2016), winner of the World Embedded Software Contest (2011), and multiple Outstanding Researcher Awards from the University of Virginia.
Please visit https://stanfordasl.github.io/robotics_seminar/ for this quarter’s lineup of speakers. Although we encourage live in-person attendance, recordings of talks will be posted also.
If you’re interested, you’re welcome to join Madhur for lunch at Blend Cafe at 12 PM. Please let Hao Li (li2053@stanford.edu) know if you plan to join.