Customer Keynote: Towards Safe Driving in Unstructured Environments

India has one of the largest road networks in the world and is emerging as the fastest growing network. With more and more vehicles on the road, safety is now more crucial than ever before. The driving conditions in countries like India are diverse and the traffic behavior is highly unstructured compared with the rest of the world. Inspecting and assessing the quality of traffic infrastructure is challenging due to the length of roads and frequency that inspections are needed. These driving conditions pose unique challenges that are yet unsolved for research in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) systems, and hence offer opportunities for possible technical innovations. Road safety is challenged by chaotic and unstructured driving environments such as lack of delineated lanes; heavy traffic of smaller vehicles like cycles, cycle-rickshaws and auto-rickshaws; large numbers of people and animals on the road; and potholes. Addressing these challenges to bring safety and autonomy to vehicles and traffic infrastructure is of paramount importance. This talk will explore technology challenges like “What are the dimensions beyond technology?”, and “What are the unique issues for countries like India?”