A Passion for Cars Led to Developing AI for Vehicles

An undying love of cars and motorsports continued after school as Class of 2002 grad Jimmy Chiu updated us on his achievements since he graduated from Purdue University. Last time we heard from Jimmy he was working for Honda Research Institute in Silicon Valley.

His years in D+T at Bangkok Patana paid off as he earned a BSc in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering at Purdue University in Indiana in the United States. He followed that up with a Masters in Aeronautical Engineering and a PhD in Aeronautics and Astronautics at Purdue.

“Currently I am working at Mythic Inc where I am a senior manager in the AI (artificial intelligence) Solutions group – leading a team of machine learning/AI engineers developing the world’s first AI chip using analog computing to meet the challenges of future intelligent products.

As I was finishing up my PhD, one of the researchers came across my Master’s thesis where I had developed a physical simulation for vehicle dynamics and asked me to come out to California to help them on a special vehicle project which was so novel that there was essentially no prior art. They wanted me to come help write the physics model of the vehicle so they could study its behavior. I ended up finishing the simulation, then going on to develop the control system for it, resulting in three international patents and multiple prototypes. The company convinced me to stick around with a variety of research projects and eventually, after a few years, I ended up leading the automated vehicle project for Honda Research Institute USA.

During that time, I eventually went back to campus to defend my dissertation and completed my PhD. I went on to work for a variety of autonomous vehicle projects and over the course of my work I began to realise the bottleneck for real-world autonomous cars was in the Deep Neural Network processing capabilities of current technology. I had the opportunity to work on a revolutionary new technology that could potentially enable a future generation of AI so I took the role.

My current work dovetails with my passion for automobiles. I’ve always had an affinity for the automobile and I still spend part of my spare time building, tweaking and racing cars. I also pit crew for Team Honda Research – West for the world’s longest automotive endurance race each year, the 25 Hours of Thunderhill.

My main long term goal is that I want to try to make sure that whatever I put my energy and expertise in to, that I am continually learning and having fun. I try to enjoy the process of getting there as much as the end result and I would like to think that in ten years I could look back and say that it was time well spent.

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