Title:

AV Autonomy: from Concept to Application

Hector Escobar, PhD
Autonomy Robotics Engineer, Sr.

Dr. Escobar is currently the Section Manager for the Autonomy & GNC department of Aerovironment, MacCready works section. His work focuses on adding autonomy capabilities to existing AV platforms through the integration of multiple technologies. In the past, he applied obstacle avoidance algorithms to autonomous fast and agile UAVs flying through unknown environments without the aid of GPS using monocular vision. Dr. Escobar was the Principal Investigator for the DARPA Fast Lightweight Autonomy program (FLA) and Project Manager and Technical lead of DARPA subterranean challenge program where he was applying his knowledge on visual perception. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of Maryland, College Park, where he conducted research on bio-inspired technologies for small object detection applied to multi-rotors and his M.S. from the University of Texas at Austin.

Webex: https://avav.webex.com/meet/hescobar