robotwits_waymo

When Waymo opens its office in Pittsburgh, it will do so partly with the team and expertise of a Carnegie Mellon University spinoff company. Waymo announced last month it would open an engineering office in Pittsburgh and bring on board RobotWits, a robotics company focusing on autonomous vehicles that was founded by Maxim Likhachev, an associate professor in the School of Computer Science's Robotics Institute. "Pittsburgh is one of the main hubs for autonomous driving technology development in the U.S.," said Tushar Chandra, head of Waymo's Behavior team, noting the city's top academic institutions and long history of autonomous vehicle innovation. "You can see why we'd be excited about Pittsburgh's engineering and technology talent and world-class expertise in robotics." Waymo was Google's self-driving car project before it branched off as an independent company in 2016.