Case studies in forward thinking
11/01/17 — Nine Berkeley Engineering faculty members share some of their forward-looking work and how it might impact what's to come.
Transportation
13.5-mile tunnel will make or break California’s bullet train
10/23/17 LA Times — A critical part of California's high-speed rail project is a 13.5-mile tunnel through the Diablo Range - a landmark project whose costs may greatly exceed initial expectations. "This is not good news for taxpayers of California," says civil engineering professor William Ibbs, who has consulted on similar rail projects around the world.
École Polytechnique and Berkeley partner for new transportation program
10/11/17 — École Polytechnique and the Institute of Transportation Studies have signed a new partnership agreement for the new École Polytechnique's Executive Master degree program. The new program will train transportation leaders to design, deploy and manage strategies and projects for companies and organizations that have an international focus.
IndyCar driver Max Chilton spreads the gospel of STEAM
09/15/17 IndyCar — Speaking to a spirited group of students of all ages at Berkeley, IndyCar driver Max Chilton spread the word on the importance of STEAM - science, technology, engineering, arts and math - to successfully educate the leaders of tomorrow.
For BART engineering interns, a focus on safety, reliability and innovation
08/23/17 Mass Transit — When EECS senior Armen Chouldjian returns to UC Berkeley in the fall, he'll ride BART knowing his summer internship helped increase safety and reliability for all the transit system's riders.
CalSol finishes 1st at Formula Sun Grand Prix
08/17/17 Daily Californian — The CalSol student team has won the Formula Sun Grand Prix, an annual solar vehicle track race for college teams from around the nation. CalSol's four-year-old Zephyr took first place in the July race in Austin, TX, completing 228 laps with zero penalties.
I-Corps supports entrepreneurs building STEM companies
07/13/17 — The regional I-Corps program, an NSF-funded collaboration among UC Berkeley, UCSF and Stanford, teaches committed entrepreneurs from STEM disciplines to take a hard look at their ideas and turn them into real, sought-after products in the market.
Avideh Zakhor: the brains behind Google Earth and Street View
05/26/17 Mercury News — EECS professor Avideh Zakhor, inventor of the 3-D modeling technology underlying Google Earth and Street View, is now turning her attention indoors. Her new startup - Indoor Reality - aims to create virtual reality and augmented reality technology for the mapping of building interiors.
A superfast lane for self-driving cars?
03/22/17 Fortune — Imagine a future where self-driving cars zip beside interstates at 120 mph, with absolutely zero congestion. That future could exist as soon as 2050, according to grad students Baiyu Chen (B.S.'14 CEE, M.S.'15 CEE, M.S.'17 EECS) and Anthony Barrs, whose Hyperlane idea was awarded top prize and $50,000 at the Infrastructure Vision 2050 Challenge.
ME professor Karl Hedrick dies at 72
02/28/17 — J. Karl Hedrick, the James Marshall Wells Academic Chair and Professor of Mechanical Engineering, passed away on February 22 after a long battle with lung cancer. He was an expert on nonlinear control theory and its applications to transportation. See also the Daily Cal's obituary for Prof. Hedrick.
Hashtagging the way to safer infrastructure
11/29/16 — Civil and environmental engineering professor Kenichi Soga delivered a CITRIS talk about using social media and sensor-laden environments to build smart infrastructure.
Green cities
11/01/16 — The majority of the world's population is projected to live in cities by the year 2050. Although cities are considered strains the environment, nuclear engineering professor Daniel Kammen see the potential for cities to be models of sustainability.
Nobel (bike) parking
11/01/16 — Reserved parking for Nobel laureates won't be limited to cars anymore. New, gold-colored bike racks were installed just outside of the Free Speech Café in recognition of Berkeley's contributions to the 2007 Nobel-prize winning International Panel on Climate Change.
Berkeley team recognized for autonomous car research
10/05/16 — ME professors Francesco Borrelli and Karl Hedrick, Ph.D. student Ashwin Carvalho, and Associate Director for Self-Driving Vehicle Development Chan Kyu Lee were in attendance for the U.S. Department of Transportation's announcement of a new policy on Automated Vehicle Development.
A lesson of Tesla crashes? Computer vision can’t do it all yet
09/21/16 New York Times — EECS department chair Jitendra Malik, a researcher in computer vision for three decades, doesn't own a Tesla, but he has advice for people who do. “Knowing what I know about computer vision,,” he said, “I wouldn't take my hands off the steering wheel.”
SF, UC Berkeley to continue collaborating on ‘smart cities’
09/09/16 — This year's bid by San Francisco and UC Berkeley failed to win the U.S. Department of Transportation's Smart City Challenge, but the city and university have agreed to continue to jointly explore innovative urban transportation options, and ways that technology can improve city life in general.
Uber Is betting we’ll see driverless 18-wheelers before taxis
09/08/16 MIT Technology Review — With its acquisition of self-driving truck startup Otto, Uber is hoping for a shortcut in the race to profit from driverless vehicles. But research engineer Steven Shladover of Berkeley's California Partners for Advanced Transportation Technology Program (PATH) sees challenges - real and perceived - in putting 40-ton trucks on the road with only software behind the wheel.
$4.6 million grant to improve how automated cars, drones interact with humans
09/08/16 — As companies contemplate deploying self-driving cars, trucks and delivery drones, Berkeley engineers are embarking on a major project to improve how they interact with humans.
How robot lover Anthony Levandowski pioneered the driverless car
08/22/16 The Guardian — Anthony Levandowski (B.S.'02, M.S.'03 IEOR) is one the most influential engineers behind self-driving vehicles. Now that Uber has bought his latest startup, Otto, he talks about how it all started with a phone call from Mom.
Whooshing into the future
06/21/16 California magazine — Aiming to make speed-of-sound commutes a reality, the bLoop team, made up of 40 UC Berkeley students and faculty, is heading into the final round of the hyperloop competition sponsored by Elon Musk's SpaceX company.