Educating UGVs

Advancements in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) are accelerating as the technology matures from being research-orientated to being deployed in a wide range of products and services, such as autonomous vehicles. While Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) were first described in the 1950s, the technology remained an academic concept until the availability of large training data sets and powerful Graphics Processor Units (GPUs), a processor architecture ideal for the heavy math computational demands associated with neural network processing. Once scientists had low-cost and high-performance platforms, the technology exploded for many commercial uses. Military use is more challenging due to the lack of large data sets, but that is changing too as areas including thermal imagery are starting to be used.