How I Pivoted From Mars Rovers to Amazon’s Self-Driving Zoox

• Olivier Toupet began his profession engaged on autonomous helicopters.
• The previous supervisor at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab now works at AV startup Zoox.
• Here is his story, as instructed to the reporter Alexa St. John.

This as-told-to essay relies on a transcribed dialog with Olivier Toupet, 42, a principal software program engineer working inside the planning and controls workforce at Zoox, the autonomous-vehicle startup owned by Amazon. Toupet relies in San Diego County, California. He began his profession as an aerospace engineer and has an M.S. in aeronautics and astronautics from MIT and a M.S. in aeronautical engineering from ISAE-SUPAERO in France. The interview has been edited for size and readability. 

France is the place I grew up and went to high school for aerospace engineering. 

My unique ardour is basically in aeronautics and airplanes. I acquired my personal pilot license. That college was a prime area faculty in France, and has partnerships with prime colleges within the US, so I made a decision to do a double diploma at MIT. 

I’ve at all times been very within the US. I got here throughout highschool for a full month to a faculty in Philadelphia. I used to be excited to return once more, this time for graduate faculty. 

I used to be fortunate sufficient to discover a French professor doing analysis on aerobatic helicopters. 

That was within the early 2000s. These have been small-scale helicopters that have been totally autonomous and flying the sky, doing the craziest aerobatics. Very attention-grabbing from a trajectory planning and management perspective. 

I’ve at all times liked arithmetic and I have been fairly good at it. That is how I acquired into controls, movement planning, drones, and autonomous autos. 

As a foreigner, it is exhausting to work within the aerospace business.

There are many restrictions. However I used to be fortunate sufficient that my advisor had a small startup the place he was really commercializing a few of his helicopters. The co-CEO was additionally an MIT analysis engineer. I acquired employed by an organization, Aurora Flight Sciences, in November 2006.

The primary six years of my profession, I used to be working immediately with numerous college at MIT and doing actually thrilling analysis tasks on multi-vehicle autonomy, so drones, floor autos, water autos, even area with NASA. 

As you’ll be able to think about, very thrilling intellectually, however typically it is numerous small tasks the place you do small prototype developments, feasibility, and it would not actually make it to an precise product. 

It left me a little bit bit wanting by way of having a much bigger influence and truly creating actual merchandise. 

I moved to California proper after I acquired married in 2011 and labored on self-flying automobiles at an organization that is now referred to as Wisk.Aero.

I set to work on some fairly difficult issues. This was really creating an actual airplane from the bottom up. In order that was a little bit little bit of a dream, a bunch of mates in a startup creating an plane. 

Olivier Toupet

It is a small world in robotics. I’ve by no means really utilized to an organization. Of all the roles that I’ve needed to date, it has been mates reaching out to me to return work with them at that firm. 

In 2011, it was nonetheless a little bit bit early for self-flying automobiles. I feel now they’re beginning to achieve extra momentum, however nonetheless in all probability a decade off. 

One other good friend of mine reached out and instructed me I ought to come be part of them. I made a decision to maneuver to LA and go work at NASA. I figured after all of the startups, why not work for a giant firm, and what higher massive firm than NASA? 

I am actually inquisitive about area and aerospace engineering, however my actual ardour was extra airplanes. 

I used to be the supervisor of the Robotic Aerial Mobility group on the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

It’s form of a singular place within the sense that it is referred to as a FFRDC: Federally Funded Analysis and Growth Middle. It is on the intersection of business and academia within the sense that you’ve some actually cool analysis tasks, however you even have actually cool NASA flight missions, the place you’ll be able to really infuse a few of these robotics applied sciences. 

For instance, I developed the self-driving for the Perseverance rover, so now it will possibly drive itself, on Mars, past the horizon. I acquired a medal from NASA for my work on traction management for the Curiosity rover, which helped principally scale back harm on the wheels. (Toupet obtained one other NASA medal for software program for the Perseverance rover.) 

I acquired to drive the Alternative, Curiosity, and Perseverance rovers, in addition to fly the Ingenuity helicopter on Mars.

I had an excellent good friend who left JPL to go work at Zoox.

I joined Zoox as a guide in March 2015, and that was form of supreme for me as a result of I acquired to do cool stuff for NASA at a reasonably gradual tempo — these area applications take a few years to get to maturity — however on the similar time, most weekends, I might be right here within the Bay Space working at a a lot quicker tempo. It was form of better of each worlds, and in order that went on for seven years. 

Zoox was acquired by Amazon. It was excellent timing.  

One cause why it labored so properly for me to be a guide right here: When you consider it, any person may even see it as just some hours on weekends and so forth. How will you be productive? The explanation why it really works so properly is as a result of there’s numerous technical experience that I can leverage and that helps me develop issues far more shortly than somebody who must rediscover the right way to do issues from scratch. 

I joined full-time in November 2021.

Connections are essential. 

It is simply all these unusual coincidences in my life that ended up panning out. I do not know if I did something particular, besides simply following what I am actually enthusiastic about. To me, what’s most vital is the individuals with whom you’re employed. If you happen to take a look at my profession, despite the fact that I actually like airplanes, then I went to area and I went to AV, and it isn’t essentially as a result of I used to be that enthusiastic about AV or area, it’s also due to the individuals I set to work with. 

There are different AV corporations, however I might by no means take into account working for an additional one, as a result of to me, the individuals at Zoox, they’re like household.

The leaders of the corporate, CTO (Jesse Levinson) and CEO (Aicha Evans), are folks that I look as much as and that I like. They are not simply individuals who pay me each month.

The AV area is the following frontier of robotics. 

I’ve labored on numerous autonomous autos, however at all times in some pretty small scope. What we’re making an attempt to do right here within the AV area, it is extraordinarily multidisciplinary. It is all the robotics stack. You are doing notion, you are doing planning, you are doing prediction, doing simulation. Zoox can be doing the car as properly, so all of the {hardware}. It is redesigning the entire robotaxi from scratch.

If we’re capable of develop that know-how that may react quicker than people and would not get drunk and would not get drained and would not get sleepy on the wheel, that is a improbable consequence of the robotics experience I’ve developed.

The achieve is proportional to the danger you’re taking. If you happen to at all times attempt to do one thing simple, then your accomplishments aren’t as nice. I do suppose that know-how for self-driving automobiles has some challenges, however we’ll get there. It is a frontier that we are going to attain quickly and I feel it is completely well worth the problem and the exhausting work.