Transferring Knowledge From a Drone To a Truck

There are many similarities between what Yuchen Wang (MSR '19) did for her final project in Northwestern Engineering's Master of Science in Robotics (MSR) program and what she currently does professionally.

The biggest difference can be summed up in one word: weight.

As an MSR student, Wang created a simulation of a light-weight drone used for mapping. Today, Wang is a senior software engineer at Plus, an autonomous truck software company, where she is in charge of the simulator for the technology that one day could put driverless, 80,000-pound tractor trailers on the world’s highways.

“That MSR project did help me a lot,” said Wang, who has been with Plus for more than three years. “When I was applying for jobs and now when I am doing my simulation work here at Plus, that project has been really useful, and I'm glad that I chose it.”

Wang also is glad she chose MSR. She earned a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering from the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, Indiana, in 2018 but knew she wanted to further her education. As soon as she realized robotics was what she wanted to pursue, MSR seemed like a perfect option.

In MSR, Wang found a program with a small cohort that allowed her to develop meaningful relationships with professors and fellow students. The program also featured a comprehensive curriculum mixed with technical knowledge and hands-on project experience.

MSR also offered a clear endpoint to the journey, she said.

“Most of the past MSR students have found good, cool jobs,” she said. “All those factors made the decision to apply to MSR an easy one.”

It’s a decision that helped change the course of her professional career — it could contribute to changing how goods get from one place to another.

Plus is on the road to making driverless tractor trailers a part of the fabric of the transportation network. Wang said she understands the safety concerns many people have about the prospect of sharing the road with such a massive vehicle that doesn’t have a human inside. She firmly believes the benefits will eventually outweigh the fear.

Those benefits include better fuel efficiency, financial savings that push down on the upward pressure of the price of goods, and, ultimately, improved highway safety. 

“It's going to be the future for our transportation industry,” she said. “I do understand that people who are not in this industry are concerned about safety, but, for me, it's just a matter of time.”

Wang’s job is to ensure that when autonomous trucks are deployed, they are safe. To do that, she created and maintains a simulator that tests changes to the autonomous driving software before they are put into an actual self-driving truck.

“It's not a good idea to deploy the code directly to the truck before we know if it's going to fail or if there is any problem that might happen,” she said. “So we mimic the entire pipeline virtually and on our cloud platform to make sure all parts have been fixed and nothing critical is happening.”

That Wang translated the drone work she did for her final MSR project into the autonomous truck software she is in charge of developing today leaves her with an even more positive feeling about her MSR experience.

Her advice to current and future students is to take advantage of the same flexibility she found in the MSR program.

“It's OK if you are not sure what you're interested in,” she said. “MSR provides a lot of options, and we also have fantastic professors who help you figure out what might interest you. If you are interested in robotics, it's a good place to join.”