Determining which elements of optical or image quality used in autonomous driving are actually relevant for its AI-based perception and decision-making software are both an opportunity and challenge in the coming year, believes Prof Dr Alexander Braun, of the University of Applied Sciences Düsseldorf.
This is especially true in the case of automotive mass production. Braun said: ‘We don’t need a good MTF end-of-line, we need a good traffic sign detection and recognition in the field, and that for one million camera systems per year.’ The challenge, he believes, comes in linking and correlating those optical features to the actual AI performance, which requires physical-realistic simulation of environmental influences on image quality, such as from temperature, dirt and rain.
He identified the work of Felix Heide, assistant professor of computer science at Princeton and CTO of Algolux, as worthy of note. Heide was one of 20 researchers to receive a Packard Fellowship in October for his lab’s work on using AI to create a new kind of camera that can analyse and perform computation on a scene before an image is captured. He had previously developed a meta-surface camera the size of a coarse grain of salt.
Braun believes that photonics is underrated in the public perception: ‘The industry is (and has been) desperately looking for talent, but unfortunately there is a huge gap between what young people find attractive and start studying, and what the industry would like as a optical skill-set.’ However, he was emphatic about the field as a career choice. ‘Well chosen, you basically have a job guarantee,’ he said.
You can find Prof Braun online at https://www.linkedin.com/in/profdralexanderbraun/.
He plans to attend Electronic Imaging 2023, San Francisco, and AutoSens 2023, Brussels
Organisation: University of Applied Sciences Düsseldorf
Role: Professor of Physics
Based in: Düsseldorf, Germany
Education: Physicist, Diploma in Laser Fluorescence Spectroscopy from University of Göttingen, Germany; Research stay at the ESPCI, Paris, laser spectroscopy of heat transport in semiconductors; PhD in Quantum Optics / Quantum Computing with trapped ions, experiments at the University of Hamburg, degree from the University of Siegen