Speaker: Dr. Cedric Cocaud
Affiliation: Sr. Perception Engineer at A3 by Airbus
Location: Mechanical Engineering Bldg., 5 King’s College Road, Room MC331
Date and time: November 23rd, 2017, 2 – 3 PM
Join us, this event is open to everyone!
Abstract
Vahana started in early 2016 as one of the first projects at A³, the advanced projects outpost of Airbus in Silicon Valley. The VTOL aircraft is designed to be electrically powered, self-piloted, and able to automatically detect and avoid obstacles and other aircrafts. This new class of vehicle is meant to be the first certified self-piloted passenger aircraft enabling Airbus to provide a fully autonomous air transportation service for passengers in dense urban environments. The vehicle is designed to automatically detect and avoid obstacles and other aircrafts, while carrying a single passenger or cargo. This presentation discusses the key challenges to develop the autonomous systems of a self-piloted air taxi for operations in urban environments.
Speaker brief biography
Cedric Cocaud received a B.A.S. and a M.S. in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Ottawa, Canada, and a M.S. at the International Space University in Strasbourg, France, before working on the development of unmanned air vehicle navigation systems for the Department of Defense R&D Ottawa, as well as on multi-robots navigation systems at the Royal Military College in Kingston, Canada. Completed a Ph.D in Electrical Engineering at the University of Tokyo, working with the Japanese Space Agency on monocular simultaneous localization and mapping for autonomous landing on asteroids. Founded a startup in Paris developing an autonomous multi-drone security system for large industrial facilities. Joined A³, the advanced projects outpost of Airbus in Silicon Valley, in 2016 as the Senior Perception Engineer of the Sense & Avoid group of the Vahana Project. Main research interests include deep learning, autonomous vehicles, guidance navigation and control, and computer vision.
Dr. Cocaud’s talk is hosted by the Toronto Institute for Advanced Manufacturing.