News and commentary from AUVSI/TRB Automated Vehicle Symposium 2017

I've been at every one, from the tiny one with perhaps 100-200 people to this one with 1,400 that fills a large ballroom. Tuesday morning did not offer too many surprises. The first was an announcement by Toyota Research Institute of a $100M venture fund. Toyota committed $1B to this group a couple of years ago, but surprisingly Gil Pratt (who ran the DARPA Robotics Challenge for humanoid-like robots) has been somewhat a man of mixed views, with less optimistic forecasts. Different about this VC fund will be the use of DARPA like "calls."