Oxbotica is a vehicle software company at the forefront of autonomous technology, and today we have a fascinating chat with Ben Upcroft, the Vice President of Technology. Ben explains Oxbotica's mission of enabling industries to make the most of autonomy, and how their technological progress affects real-world situations. We also get into some of the challenges that Oxbotica and the autonomy space, in general, are currently facing, before drilling down on the important concepts of user trust, future implementations, and creating an adaptable core functionality. The last part of today's episode is spent exploring the exciting possibilities of simulated environments for data collection, and the broadening of vehicle experience. Ben talks about the importance of seeking out edge cases to improve their data, and we get into how Oxbotica applies this data across locations. 

Key Points From This Episode:

• The constant joy and excitement that Ben feels about his work!
• An introduction to Oxbotica and its main mission as an organization. 
• How the advances in autonomy translate into real-world progress in safety and efficiency. 
• Handbrakes on the widespread implementation of more autonomy; Ben looks at current limitations. 
• Facilitating trust in the public sphere for something new and the markers of progress. 
• Oxbotica's array of vehicles and goals beyond basic transportation. 
• Constant evolution and the question of staying on course with the rising tide of technology.  
• How generic features allow for an adaptable core functionality in Oxbotica's vehicles.  
• Applying data from different environments to boost performance across location types.
• How Oxbotica focuses on simulated edge cases as a means to broaden the capabilities of their technologies.
• The amount of real-world data that is necessary for accurate synthesis. 
• Assessing the idea of quality over quantity when it comes to data for AI applications. 
• The areas of the AI field that have Ben most excited right now; emulation of the human brain for the creation of new platforms! 

Tweetables:

“Oxbotica is about deploying and enabling industries to use and leverage autonomy for performance, for efficiency, and safety gains.” — @ben_upcroft 

“The autonomy that we bring revolutionizes how we move around the globe, through logistics transport, on wheeled vehicles.” — @ben_upcroft 

“The idea behind the system is that it is modular, enables a core functionality, and I am able to add little extras that customize for a particular domain.” — @ben_upcroft 

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Ben Upcroft on LinkedIn

Oxbotica

Ben Upcroft on Twitter