Motional: Scalable AI Solutions for Driverless Vehicles

Motional is making autonomous vehicles a reality; it was the first company to successfully perform a cross-country autonomous drive and has launched its publicly available ride-hail services in Las Vegas via the Lyft network. In this keynote, Laura Major, Motional’s Chief Technology Officer, describes the various techniques the company uses to discover long-tail data— say, a cyclist carrying a surfboard or irregular driving patterns around construction sites—and incorporate that into both training and testing. Part of this involves combining sensor modalities including cameras, Lidar, and radar, Major explains, and it all works with Motional’s Continuous Learning Framework. Major gives a bit of a preview of what’s coming next for Modality, including meal-delivery services and its plans for global expansion.

Major began her career as a cognitive engineer for Draper Laboratory, where she combined her psychology and engineering skills to design decision-making support devices for US astronauts and soldiers. Laura also spent time at Aria Insights, Inc. (formerly known as CyPhy Works), a US-based drone manufacturer that specialized in developing highly advanced drones. She served as VP of Engineering, and then Chief Technology Officer, working on the development of autonomous aerial vehicles. She co-authored the book What To Expect When You're Expecting Robots: The Future of Human-Robot Collaboration.