Talk 5

Abstract: Autonomy in vehicles is increasing at a rapid pace, with some estimates projecting exponential growth, despite the fact that such technologies have not yet established a clear safety benefit. This talk will highlight current regulatory efforts to determine whether vehicles with both advanced driving assistance and autonomous driving capabilities are safe enough to operate on public roads. Recent events have demonstrated the criticality of the human-autonomous vehicle interaction piece, both for drivers of such vehicles, but also human developers. The talk will conclude with the presentation of a roadmap to illustrate where both basic and applied researchers need to focus their efforts to make safe autonomous driving a reality.

Bio: A naval officer and military pilot from 1988-1999, Dr. Mary “Missy” Cummings was one of the U.S. Navy’s first female fighter pilots. She is now the director of Mason’s Autonomy and Robotics Center (MARC) and a professor in George Mason University. She holds faculty appointments in the Mechanical Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Computer Science departments. She is an American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Fellow and recently served as the senior safety advisor to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Cummings received her BS in Mathematics from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1988, her MS in Space Systems Engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School in 1994, and her PhD in Systems Engineering from the University of Virginia in 2004.