Edwin Olson

Edwin Brock Olson
Born	(1977-06-03) 3 June 1977 (age 48) Hennepin County, Minnesota, US
Education	Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MEng,PhD)
Known for	Vehicular automation Robotics
Scientific career
Fields	Robotics
Thesis	Robust and Efficient Robotic Mapping  (2008)
Doctoral advisor	John J. Leonard Seth Teller
Website	april.eecs.umich.edu/people/ebolson/ [ dead link ]

Edwin Olson (born 3 June 1977) is an American academic, roboticist, and business executive. He is an adjunct professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of Michigan and the co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of May Mobility. ^{[1] [2]}

Early life and education

Olson was born in 1977 and grew up in nearby Bloomington, Minnesota. ^{[3] [4]} He was educated at JF Kennedy High School in Bloomington. ^[5]

Olson received a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering and computer science in 2000, followed by a Master of Engineering in the same field in 2001. ^[3] His master's thesis, titled Otto: A Low-Cost Robotics Platform for Research and Education. ^[6] In 2008, he completed his Ph.D. in computer science and engineering at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). ^[3] His doctoral dissertation, Robust and Efficient Robotic Mapping, was supervised by John J. Leonard and Seth Teller. ^{[7] [8]} While at MIT, he was a member of the team that competed in the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge, where their autonomous vehicle secured a fourth-place finish. ^{[3] [9]}

Career

In 2008, Olson became an assistant professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Michigan, where he founded the APRIL Robotics Laboratory. In 2010, his "Team Michigan" won the inaugural Multi Autonomous Ground-robotic International Challenge (MAGIC) in Australia. ^{[10] [11]} The team used a fleet of 14 coordinated robots to map an urban area, securing a $750,000 prize from the United States Department of Defense. ^[12] Olson was promoted to associate professor with tenure in 2014. ^[13]

While at the university, Olson worked with Ford Motor Company on autonomous vehicle research. ^[3] In 2016, he also assumed the role of co-director of autonomous driving development at the newly established Toyota Research Institute (TRI) in Ann Arbor, while retaining a part-time faculty position. ^{[4] [14]}

In early 2017, Olson left TRI to co-found May Mobility, an Ann Arbor-based company that develops and operates autonomous shuttle services for short-distance transit. ^[15] As CEO, Olson oversaw the company's first deployment in Detroit in 2018. ^[16] May Mobility has since launched its low-speed, electric shuttles in other U.S. locations, including Arlington, Texas, and Grand Rapids, Minnesota, as well as a pilot program in Hiroshima, Japan, in 2021. ^{[1] [17]}

Olson continues to lead May Mobility as CEO while maintaining his affiliation with the University of Michigan. ^[15]

Research

Olson's research focuses on enabling robots and autonomous vehicles to perceive and navigate complex environments, frequently involving multi-robot cooperation. At the University of Michigan, he developed AprilTag, a two-dimensional barcode-based fiducial marker system for visual localization and mapping. ^[18]

Olson has also contributed to autonomous driving software. He co-developed the Multi-Policy Decision Making (MPDM) framework, which enables autonomous vehicles to simulate and evaluate numerous possible trajectories in real-time, facilitating adaptive driving behaviors in dynamic environments. ^[19]

Selected publications

• Olson, E. (2011). "AprilTag: A robust and flexible visual fiducial system". 2011 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation. pp. 3400–3407. doi:10.1109/ICRA.2011.5979561. ISBN   978-1-61284-386-5.
• Wang, J.; Olson, E. (2016). "AprilTag 2: Efficient and robust fiducial detection". 2016 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS). pp. 4193–4198. doi:10.1109/IROS.2016.7759617. ISBN   978-1-5090-3762-9.
• Olson, Edwin; Leonard, John; Teller, Seth Teller (2006). "Fast iterative alignment of pose graphs with poor initial estimates". Proceedings 2006 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2006. ICRA 2006. pp. 2262–2269. doi:10.1109/ROBOT.2006.1642040. ISBN   0-7803-9505-0 . Retrieved 6 May 2025. - selected as a Google Scholar "classic paper" in the robotics field ^[20]
• Leonard, J.; How, J.; Teller, S.; Berger, M.; Campbell, S.; Fiore, G.; Fletcher, L. (2008). "A perception-driven autonomous urban vehicle". Journal of Field Robotics. 25 (10): 727–774. doi:10.1002/rob.20262.
• Olson, E. B. (2009). "Real-time correlative scan matching". 2009 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation. pp. 4387–4393. doi:10.1109/ROBOT.2009.5152375. ISBN   978-1-4244-2788-8.

Awards and recognition

While at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), he received with the Frederick C. Hennie III Award for Teaching Excellence. ^[21]

During his tenure at the University of Michigan, he was named to Popular Science magazine's "Brilliant 10" list of young scientists in 2012.^{[ citation needed ]} In the same year, a paper by his team on robotic mapping earned a Best Paper award at the International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS).^{[ citation needed ]} In 2013, he received a Young Faculty Award from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). ^[22] In 2014, Olson received the Morris Wellman Faculty Development Professorship. ^[23]

References

1. "Edwin Olson | Notable Leaders in Energy 2023". Crain's Detroit Business. 11 July 2023.
2. "Edwin Olson". Bloomberg.
3. "Edwin Olson '00, MEng '01, PhD '08". MIT Technology Review.
4. "RYAN EUSTICE and EDWIN OLSON". www.autonews.com.
5. "Ed's Home Page". www.blisstonia.com.
6. "APRIL Laboratory APRIL Papers".
7. "Robust and Efficient Robotic Mapping" (PDF).
8. Olson, Edwin B. (2008). Robust and efficient robotic mapping (Thesis). Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
9. Comments, View. "Self-driving buses come to Providence - The Boston Globe". BostonGlobe.com.
10. "University of Michigan students take robots to compete in international competition". AnnArbor.com.
11. "Winning the MAGIC 2010 Autonomous Robotics Competition".
12. "Team Michigan wins worldwide robotics competition". www.army.mil. 9 September 2011.
13. "APRIL Laboratory APRIL Laboratory".
14. Gardner, Greg. "Toyota hires 2 U-M experts, raising self-driving ante". Detroit Free Press.
15. Weaver, Lora Kolodny,Darren (26 February 2018). "BMW and Toyota are investing in a start-up that makes self-driving shuttles". CNBC.
16. Turner, Grace (26 June 2018). "Ann Arbor's May Mobility and Detroit's Bedrock Partner to Deploy Autonomous Vehicles in Detroit".
17. Bellan, Rebecca (12 July 2022). "May Mobility aims for driverless autonomous shuttles by 2023".
18. Olson, E. (2011). "AprilTag: A robust and flexible visual fiducial system". 2011 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation. pp. 3400–3407. doi:10.1109/ICRA.2011.5979561. ISBN   978-1-61284-386-5.
19. Cunningham, A. G.; Galceran, E.; Eustice, R. M.; Olson, E. (2015). "MPDM: Multipolicy decision-making in dynamic, uncertain environments for autonomous driving". 2015 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA). pp. 1670–1677. doi:10.1109/ICRA.2015.7139412. ISBN   978-1-4799-6923-4.
20. "Robotics - Classic papers". scholar.google.com. Retrieved 6 May 2025.
21. "Electrical engineering and computer science". 2 June 2004.
22. "DARPA Young Faculty Engage with Next Generation of Army Tech Users | DARPA". www.darpa.mil.
23. "Wellman Professrships | Computer Science and Engineering at Michigan". Computer Science and Engineering.

External links

• Edwin Olson publications indexed by Google Scholar