Thiru Vikram

Last updated
Thiru Vikram
Thiru Vikram headshot.jpg
Born (1995-07-25) 25 July 1995 (age 28)
NationalityAmerican
Alma mater
Occupations
  • Inventor
  • Entrepreneur
  • Engineer
Title Chief executive officer

Thiru Vikram (born July 25, 1995) is an inventor, engineer and entrepreneur, who is the CEO of Buffalo Automation, an artificial intelligence company headquartered in Buffalo, New York, that provides autonomous navigation technology for commercial ships and recreational boats. [1] [2] [3] [4]

Contents

Early life and career

Vikram attended the Lawrence School, Lovedale in Ootacamund, Tamil Nadu, India. [5] Vikram was a Headboy and a member of the Robotics Club at Lovedale. [6]

He studied computer science and electrical engineering at the University at Buffalo School of Engineering and Applied Sciences where he co-founded Buffalo Automation with Alexander Zhitelzeyf and Emilie Reynolds, who were fellow engineering students at the university. [7] [8] The company was initially founded to design and build an artificial intelligence system that enables ships and boats to self-navigate. [9] [10] In 2015, Vikram left the University at Buffalo to focus on the company full-time. [11] [12] [13] [14]

Vikram is a Dravidian Indian-American originally from Tamil Nadu in South India, and is a Hindu. [15] [16]

Vikram serves in the US Army Reserve as a combat engineer. [17]

Awards

Vikram was awarded first place in the 2018 Entrepreneurs' Organization Global Student Entrepreneurship Awards Western NY Competition. [18]

In 2021, Vikram was recognized as a CSE Distinguished Junior Alumni by the University at Buffalo. [19]

In 2022, Vikram was featured as one of the United States’ 18 Top CEO’s in the Assistive Technology Startup Space and among the top 44 in Navigation by Boardroom Media. [20] [21]

Inventions

Vikram is listed as an inventor in a few patents related to autonomous navigation technology. These include a sensor system for maritime vessels, [22] a deep learning intelligent sensing system integration, [23] training a deep learning system for maritime applications, [24] a deep learning intelligent sensing system for port operations, [25] and a lane and object detection systems and methods. [26]

Related Research Articles

An autonomous robot is a robot that acts without recourse to human control. The first autonomous robots environment were known as Elmer and Elsie, which were constructed in the late 1940s by W. Grey Walter. They were the first robots in history that were programmed to "think" the way biological brains do and meant to have free will. Elmer and Elsie were often labeled as tortoises because of how they were shaped and the manner in which they moved. They were capable of phototaxis which is the movement that occurs in response to light stimulus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Swarm robotics</span> Coordination of multiple robots as a system

Swarm robotics is an approach to the coordination of multiple robots as a system which consist of large numbers of mostly simple physical robots. ″In a robot swarm, the collective behavior of the robots results from local interactions between the robots and between the robots and the environment in which they act.″ It is supposed that a desired collective behavior emerges from the interactions between the robots and interactions of robots with the environment. This approach emerged on the field of artificial swarm intelligence, as well as the biological studies of insects, ants and other fields in nature, where swarm behaviour occurs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lawrence School, Lovedale</span> Public school in Tamil Nadu, India

The Lawrence School, Lovedale, is a co-educational private boarding school located at Lovedale, which is a little town on the Nilgiri Mountains in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robotic lawn mower</span> Type of autonomous robot

A robotic lawn mower is an autonomous robot used to cut lawn grass. A typical robotic lawn mower requires the user to set up a border wire around the lawn that defines the area to be mowed. The robot uses this wire to locate the boundary of the area to be trimmed and in some cases to locate a recharging dock. Robotic mowers are capable of maintaining up to 30,000 m2 (320,000 sq ft) of grass.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vehicular automation</span> Automation for various purposes of vehicles

Vehicular automation involves the use of mechatronics, artificial intelligence, and multi-agent systems to assist the operator of a vehicle such as a car, aircraft, or watercraft. A vehicle using automation for tasks such as navigation to ease but not replace human control, qualify as semi-autonomous, whereas a fully self-operated vehicle is termed autonomous.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Delivery robot</span> Autonomous robot for "last mile" delivery

A delivery robot is an autonomous robot that provides "last mile" delivery services. An operator may monitor and take control of the robot remotely in certain situations that the robot cannot resolve by itself such as when it is stuck in an obstacle. Delivery robots can be used in different settings such as food delivery, package delivery, hospital delivery, and room service.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robotic vacuum cleaner</span> Autonomous vacuum floor cleaning system

A robotic vacuum cleaner, sometimes called a robovac or a roomba as a generic trademark, is an autonomous robotic vacuum cleaner which has a limited vacuum floor cleaning system combined with sensors and robotic drives with programmable controllers and cleaning routines. Early designs included manual operation via remote control and a "self-drive" mode which allowed the machine to clean autonomously.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brainlab</span>

Brainlab is a privately held German medical technology company headquartered in Munich, Bavaria. Brainlab develops software and hardware for radiotherapy and radiosurgery, and the surgical fields of neurosurgery, ENT and craniomaxillofacial, spine surgery, and traumatic interventions. Their products focus on image-guided surgery and radiosurgery, digital operating room integration technologies, and cloud-based data sharing.

Ran Poliakine is an Israeli businessman, the founder and former CEO of Powermat Technologies. Poliakine is an entrepreneur, inventor and industrial designer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kyle Vogt</span> American engineer

Kyle Vogt is an American businessman. In 2013, Vogt founded Cruise Automation, where he currently serves as the company's President, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Technology Officer. Cruise develops self-driving car technology and, since being acquired in May 2016, operates as an independent subsidiary of General Motors. Vogt and Cruise Co-Founder Dan Kan are the youngest senior directors at GM. Vogt and Kan were listed as number 7 on Fortune's 2016 40 Under 40 List, an annual ranking of the most influential young people in business.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Argo AI</span> Autonomous driving technology company

Argo AI was an autonomous driving technology company headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The company was co-founded in 2016 by Bryan Salesky and Peter Rander, veterans of the Google and Uber automated driving programs. Argo AI was an independent company that built software, hardware, maps, and cloud-support infrastructure to power self-driving vehicles. Argo was mostly backed by Ford Motor Co. (2017) and the Volkswagen Group (2020).

kar-go Autonomous delivery vehicle

Kar-go, is an autonomous delivery vehicle, designed and built by British company, Academy of Robotics Ltd, a UK company, registered in Wales. The vehicle uses self-drive / driverless car technology to drive itself to locations where it delivers packages autonomously.

Cruise LLC is an American self-driving car company headquartered in San Francisco, California. Founded in 2013 by Kyle Vogt and Dan Kan, Cruise tests and develops autonomous car technology. The company is a largely autonomous subsidiary of General Motors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Self-driving truck</span> Type of autonomous vehicle

A self-driving truck, also known as an autonomous truck or robo-truck, is an application of self-driving technology aiming to create trucks that can operate without human input. Alongside light, medium, and heavy-duty trucks, many companies are developing self-driving technology in semi trucks to automate highway driving in the delivery process.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Buffalo Automation</span>

Buffalo Automation is an artificial intelligence (AI) startup that develops autonomous navigation technology for commercial ships, recreational boats, and water taxis with the goal to improve maritime safety. It is a private company based in Buffalo, New York. Thiru Vikram is the CEO of the company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zoox (company)</span> American company developing self-driving taxis

Zoox, Inc. is a subsidiary of Amazon developing autonomous vehicles that provide mobility as a service. It is headquartered in Foster City, California and has offices of operations in the San Francisco Bay Area and Seattle, Washington. Zoox sits in the Amazon Devices & Services organization alongside other Amazon units like Amazon Lab126, Amazon Alexa, and Kuiper Systems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yandex self-driving car</span> Robotaxi project

Yandex self-driving car is an autonomous car project of the Russian-based technology company Yandex. The first driverless prototype launched in May 2017. As of 2018, functional service was launched in Russia with prototypes also being tested in Israel and the United States. In 2019, Yandex revealed autonomous delivery robots based on the same technology stack as the company's self-driving cars. Since 2020, autonomous robots have been delivering food, groceries and parcels in Russia and the United States. In 2020, the self-driving project was spun-off into a standalone company under the name of Yandex Self-Driving Group.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Built Robotics</span>

Built Robotics Inc. is a San Francisco, California, US-based vehicular automation startup that develops software and hardware to automate construction equipment. The company was founded in San Francisco in 2016 by Noah Ready-Campbell and Andrew Liang. The company’s primary product is the “Exosystem,” an aftermarket kit that adds autonomous robotic capabilities onto existing heavy equipment through a combination of GPS, camera, and artificial intelligence technology.

Matthew Johnson-Roberson is an American roboticist, researcher, entrepreneur and educator. Since January 2022 he has served as director of the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. Previously he was a professor at the University of Michigan College of Engineering since 2013, where he co-directed the UM Ford Center for Autonomous Vehicles (FCAV) with Ram Vasudevan. His research focuses on computer vision and artificial intelligence, with the specific applications of autonomous underwater vehicles and self-driving cars. He is also the co-founder and CTO of Refraction AI, a company focused on providing autonomous last mile delivery.

Sea Machines Robotics is a Boston, MA-based startup that is developing autonomous control and navigation systems for the commercial marine and boating industries.

References

  1. Bratek, Kim (16 November 2018). "43North — Founder Friday: Thiru Vikram, Buffalo Automation". 43North. Retrieved 2019-10-02.
  2. Caya, Chris (2017-10-16). "Are self-navigating boats on the horizon?". WBFO. Retrieved 2019-10-02.
  3. "Forget Robo-Cars and Hit the Water on an Autonomous Boat". Wired. ISSN   1059-1028 . Retrieved 2019-10-02.
  4. Lindeman, Tracey (2018-04-19). "Autonomous Boats Will Be On the Market Sooner Than Self-Driving Cars". Vice. Retrieved 2019-10-02.
  5. Nadu, Tamil (2012-04-05). "Country needs honest people: AVM Rai". The Hindu.
  6. "Robotic Club of Lovedale wins championship". The Hindu. 2011-02-10. ISSN   0971-751X . Retrieved 2021-05-11.
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  8. "Launch NY, Z80 back self-piloting ship startup". www.bizjournals.com. Retrieved 2020-11-24.
  9. "Streamlining process of detecting fevers". www.buffalo.edu. Retrieved 2020-11-24.
  10. Telford, William (2020-04-16). "Robot water taxis to be trialled by US tech giants in Plymouth". PlymouthLive. Retrieved 2020-11-24.
  11. Lehman, Joel (April 27, 2018). "The journey to funding: Buffalo Automation's story". UpstartNY. Retrieved 2019-10-02.
  12. "Thiru Vikram-led Startup Wins University of Buffalo Entrepreneur Competition". India West. 2016-06-24. Retrieved 2019-10-02.
  13. "Safer sailing with predictive technology". OceanHub. Retrieved 2019-10-02.
  14. Miner, Dan (2016-04-14). "Self-navigating ship startup wins prestigious Panasci prize". Buffalo Business Journal. Retrieved 2019-10-02.
  15. "Robotics startup wins Panasci competition". The Buffalo News. 2016-04-14. Retrieved 2019-10-02.
  16. Lehman, Joel (April 27, 2018). "The journey to funding: Buffalo Automation's story". UpstartNY. Retrieved 2020-11-24.
  17. "Europe's first commercial robotaxi service is a yellow ferry that takes you to a Dutch golf course". AI Business. Retrieved 2022-06-21.
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  19. "CSE Alumni and Friends Award Recipients". engineering.buffalo.edu. Retrieved 2022-06-21.
  20. "Meet United States's 18 Top CEO's in the Assistive Technology Startup Space". CEO. 2022-08-04. Retrieved 2022-09-05.
  21. "Meet United States's 44 Top CEO's in the Navigation Space". CEO. 2022-08-08. Retrieved 2022-11-21.
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