Event Location: NSH 1507
Bio: Robert Tamburo is currently a project scientist at the Robotics Institute in the Illumination and Imaging laboratory. He received his Ph.D. degree from the Department of Bioengineering at the University of Pittsburgh in 2006. Afterwards, he was a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh and a research fellow at Intel Labs Pittsburgh. He is interested in research that helps people in the real world.

Abstract: This is a joint work with Srinivasa Narashiman. The primary goal of an automotive headlight is to improve safety in low light and poor weather conditions. But, despite decades of innovation on light sources, more than half of accidents occur at night even with less traffic on the road. Recent developments in adaptive lighting have addressed some limitations of standard headlights, however, they have limited flexibility – switching between high and low beams, turning off beams toward the opposing lane, or rotating the beam as the vehicle turns – and are not designed for all driving environments. This paper introduces an ultra-low latency reactive visual system that can sense, react, and adapt quickly to any environment while moving at highway speeds. Our single hardware design can be programmed to perform a variety of tasks. Anti-glare high beams, improved driver visibility during snowstorms, increased contrast of lanes, markings, and sidewalks, and early visual warning of obstacles are demonstrated.