Vijay Kumar: Flying Robots | Lex Fridman Podcast #37

Vijay Kumar is one of the top roboticists in the world, professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Dean of Penn Engineering, former director of GRASP lab, or the General Robotics, Automation, Sensing and Perception Laboratory at Penn that was established back in 1979, 40 years ago. Vijay is perhaps best known for his work in multi-robot systems (or robot swarms) and micro aerial vehicles, robots that elegantly cooperate in flight under all the uncertainty and challenges that real-world conditions present. Thank you for listening ❤ Check out our sponsors: https://lexfridman.com/sponsors/ep37-sb See below for timestamps, and to give feedback, submit questions, contact Lex, etc. *CONTACT LEX:* *Feedback* - give feedback to Lex: https://lexfridman.com/survey *AMA* - submit questions, videos or call-in: https://lexfridman.com/ama *Hiring* - join our team: https://lexfridman.com/hiring *Other* - other ways to get in touch: https://lexfridman.com/contact *OUTLINE:* 0:00 - Introduction 0:58 - First robot 3:37 - Proudest accomplishments 5:32 - Drone, UAV, aerial robot terminology 6:23 - Biologically inspired robotics 8:34 - Swarm as an individual organism 11:18 - Distributed control 15:04 - Types of flying robots 19:57 - Math in a TED talk 20:29 - What does it take to make a robot fly? 27:09 - Getting from point A to point B 29:22 - Machine learning in robotics 33:53 - Autonomous vehicles 37:05 - Autonomous driving vs autonomous flight 38:52 - Applications of robot swarms 40:12 - Batteries 42:30 - Flying cars 44:03 - Robots and humans 49:48 - Sci-fi inspired fears of robots 52:22 - Open problems in robotics *PODCAST LINKS:* - Podcast Website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast - Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr - Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8 - RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/ - Podcast Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOdP_8GztsuKi9nrraNbKKp4 - Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/lexclips *SOCIAL LINKS:* - X: https://x.com/lexfridman - Instagram: https://instagram.com/lexfridman - TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@lexfridman - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/lexfridman - Facebook: https://facebook.com/lexfridman - Patreon: https://patreon.com/lexfridman - Telegram: https://t.me/lexfridman - Reddit: https://reddit.com/r/lexfridman