Recent Advances in Autonomous Vehicle Technology-Perception and Path Planning

<p><strong>Michael Stolz</strong> received the M.Sc. degree in mechanical engineering (2002) and the PhD. degree in electrical engineering (2013) from Graz University of Technology, Graz, Austria.&nbsp;He was in the automotive industry as a development engineer for ten years (one year as the skill team leader in the field of automated driving).He was a part of the Automated Driving Research Team with the Institute of Automation and Control, Graz University of Technology, as a postdoctoral project assistant and is now with the Institute of Computer Graphics and Vision at Graz University of Technology. He is also within Virtual Vehicle Research GmbH as a key researcher responsible for project planning and technical guidance of funded projects in the field of automated driving and artificial intelligence.&nbsp;His main research interests include automated driving, automotive control systems, embedded control, control-system architecture, algorithms for path planning and control, simulation, synchronization, optimization in control, and validation of automated driving.</p>
<p>Daniel Watzenig was born in Austria and holds a doctorate in electrical engineering. He received the venia docendi (habilitation) in electrical measurement science and signal processing from Graz University of Technology, Austria. He currently serves as Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and Head of the Electronics Systems and Software Department at Virtual Vehicle Research, Graz. In addition, he was appointed Full Professor of Multi-Sensor Perception of Autonomous Systems at the Institute of Visual Computing, Faculty of Computer Science and Biomedical Engineering, Graz University of Technology. His research interests include sensing and control of autonomous vehicles, sensor fusion, reinforcement learning, and decision-making under uncertainty. Professor Watzenig is the author or co-author of more than 200 peer-reviewed publications, book chapters, patents, and articles. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the SAE International Journal on Connected and Automated Vehicles (SAE JCAV). He has been a guest lecturer at Stanford University, USA, since 2019, teaching multi-sensor perception for autonomous systems. In 2023, he also began teaching robotics classes as a guest lecturer at Tongji University in Shanghai, China. He is the founder of the Autonomous Racing Graz Team and, since 2024, has served as Vice Chair and Executive Committee Member of the IEEE Austria Section. He is also an IEEE Distinguished Lecturer in the field of autonomous vehicles, a Board Member of the INSIDE Industry Association (European Initiative on Intelligent Digital Systems), and a Member of the Academic Advisory Council of PAVE (Partners for Automated Vehicle Education). Since 2019, he has acted as a consultant and appointed expert in military robotics for the Defense Technology Agency of the Austrian Armed Forces.</p>