Dinesh Manocha has developed a photo-realistic simulation system for training and validating self-driving vehicles. The new system provides a richer, more authentic simulation than current systems that use game engines or high-fidelity computer graphics and mathematically rendered traffic patterns.
The system was developed in collaboration with a team of colleagues from Baidu Research and the University of Hong Kong. It is called Augmented Autonomous Driving Simulation (AADS), and could make self-driving technology easier to evaluate in the lab while also ensuring more reliable safety before expensive road testing begins.
After Carl Schissler of the GAMMA group finished his doctorate on the room acoustics problem for real-time VR applications in summer 2017, he joined the Facebook Reality Labs Audio Research Team led by Research Science Manager Philip Robinson. Initially working on creating a system that could simulate all the complex room acoustics in real time, his work subsequently found its way into the Oculus Audio SDK.
Read the full news release here.
Dinesh Manocha joins the University of Maryland’s Department of Computer Science in May 2018 as the inaugural Paul Chrisman Iribe Endowed E-Nnovate Professor. He also holds joint appointments in the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS) and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
“I am truly honored to join the University of Maryland with appointments in two top-ranked departments. With very strong research groups in virtual reality, computer vision and graphics, and robotics, the University of Maryland is regarded as the world leader in these areas,” Manocha said.
Ming C. Lin will lead the University of Maryland’s Department of Computer Science, effective January 1, 2018.
A noted educator and expert in virtual reality, computer graphics and robotics, Lin will assume the role of Elizabeth Stevinson Iribe Chair of Computer Science with a joint appointment in the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS).
As chair, she will oversee a department that has experienced significant increases in student enrollment; expanded its research in virtual and augmented reality, robotics, machine learning, cybersecurity and quantum information science; and grown its outreach efforts to fuel more corporate and philanthropic support.
Tech companies are pursuing artificial intelligence projects more than ever, and they’re looking at universities to recruit their new talent.
According to Dinesh Manocha, a computer science professor at UNC, artificial intelligence is an old field that has been around for more than 50 years. However, he said in an email that recent technology breakthroughs have made new and exciting applications of AI a possibility.
Read the full news release here.
While the quality of visual images in video games and virtual reality continues to advance impressively with technology improvements, the sound and music quality of those games haven’t kept pace. The GAMMA group has been developing sound simulation technologies to overcome that barrier for almost a decade.
One doctoral student, Carl Schissler, has developed new practical solutions that can increase the sound quality using simulation methods and can even run on mobile platforms.
If you haven’t spent much time thinking about whether robots are going to put you out of a job, well, you can be excused for that. Not many people do. But consider it for a minute and your next thought may be whether you need to go back to school. According to recent studies, as many as half the jobs in our current economy could be automated by 2040.
On that note, Ming Lin showed ABC11 how automation is positioned to assist with cancer treatments.