ADAS & Autonomous Vehicle Engineering - April 2023 - 18

Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning
both about generalization - the collective 'we' - and
adapting to the user. His 50-person robotics team is
focused on the challenge of helping aging society - by
2050 half of Japan's population will be at least 65 years
old, he said. The diversity of robotic applications and
use cases is " a huge challenge, " Bajracharya said.
Building off of what Galdon said about having
TRI's electric Global Research Innovation platform with wheel-hub
motors, by-wire controls and 4-wheel steering is a testbed for shared
autonomy systems development.
humans in the loop, Charlene Wu, TRI's director of
Human-Centered AI, affirmed that how the technology
is used is as important as the tech itself. She
shared an example from human-centered AI and her
team's future product innovation work.
" We've achieved a nice human-machine interchange
by leveraging some of the recent generative-AI tools, " Wu
explained. " A product designer might have a concept in
their mind, something they can visualize. They can use
the AI tools and input a prompt that describes what they
might like in the concept. There are two ways in which
the interaction with AI can be really productive. First, it
allows designers to explore all kinds of visualizations of
just a single input. They can explore that space and maybe
even tap into some ideas that they had yet to encounter. "
Once the designer has seen a concept or idea that
The diversity of robotic applications and use cases is " a huge
challenge, " noted Max Bajracharya, senior VP of Robotics.
partial, and dangerous to collect. There are always going
to be more blind spots in your data. I think AGI [artificial
general intelligence] is the same because it assumes
infinite compute, infinite energy, infinite money, while
the real world is much richer, data-wise, than the Web. "
He explains Foundation models, a new generation
of ML models that are trained on as wide and general a
dataset as possible. Like the foundation of a house, you
can build any type of house on it, he said. And through
in-context learning, the system becomes personalized to
you through repeated interaction. It's part of a transition
in AI where systems that execute specific tasks in a single
domain are yielding to broad AI, with more general
learning, that works across domains and problems.
" Train one big model once to capture, for example,
common sense, and program it to adapt to you through,
say, natural language, " offered Max Bajracharya, senior
VP of Robotics at TRI. He said machine learning is
they want to pursue further, they can then use AI to
help refine and fine-tune the initial concept. " This is
really powerful, " Wu noted, " because it allows people to
be much more creative and also more efficient. That's
because you can access so many more manifestations of a
particular idea in such a short amount of time. This is how
we're choosing productive ways to use the technology in
ways in which humans and AI can interact more. "
Amplifying the driver
" In human interactive driving, we're trying to create
a sense of great experience for people when they're
driving - and have the car be able to amplify that, "
Avinash Balachandran, director of TRI's Human
Interactive Driving (HID) division, explained during
a visit to TRI's engineering garage. Circled around him
are three development platforms: a Lexus LC loaded
with data-acquisition gear for gathering driver inputs
and real-world road data; an open tube-framed, electric
mule vehicle with wheel-hub motors, by-wire controls
and four-wheel steering; and a race-kitted Supra set up
for autonomous drifting and data acquisition. All three
platforms were built by Toyota Racing Developments
(TRD). A few floors above is a multi-axis driving simulator
and control room, co-developed with TRD.
Balachandran frames his team's mission: " Imagine
yourself skiing or riding a bike or any enjoyable
activity. It's the liking and happiness you derive from
18 April 2023
ADAS & AUTONOMOUS VEHICLE ENGINEERING
Lindsay Brooke
Toyota Research Institute
ADAS & Autonomous Vehicle Engineering - April 2023

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