Dr. Eric Krotkov serves as the Chief Science Officer of the Toyota Research Institute, where he is an officer of the company and responsible for exploratory research. The current exploratory research portfolio includes the University AI Research program, the Accelerated Materials Discovery and Design program, and Machine Assisted Cognition. The University AI Research program partners with MIT, Stanford, and the University of Michigan to explore new ideas in automated driving and home robotics. The program will have completed almost 100 projects over a 5-year period. Participants have received awards for Best Paper at CVPR 2018, Best Paper at ICRA 2019, and Finalist for Best Paper at ICRA 2019.The Accelerated Materials Design and Discovery program develops tools to speed up the process of inventing new materials for batteries, fuel cells, and polymers. The group has published papers in Nature Energy and Nature Communications.The Machine Assisted Cognition program, just starting up in 2019, will develop and demonstrate computational cognitive aids to amplify and augment the human cognitive abilities for decision-making, prediction, and judgment.From March 2017 until May 2019, Dr. Krotkov led TRI’s robotics research activities. He grew the staff and the laboratory facilities into a world-class group conducting research to assist older adults, their families, and their caregivers. Technical topics included manipulation, mobile manipulation, shared autonomy, outdoor robotics, factory robotics, and virtual mobility.From January 2016 through March 2017, he served as the Chief Operating Officer of the company, getting the company up and running including HR, Finance, Facilities, Compliance, and R&D.

Griffin serves government and commercial clients with consulting and research in robotics and machine perception. Government clients include DARPA (ATO, DIRO, DSO, MTO, IPTO, TTO), IDA, and other agencies. Commercial clients include robotics and pharmaceutical companies.Program Management of complex technical projects. Define research program schedule, budget, and identify potential contractors and consultants. Define technical project scope, with measurable criteria. Strategic planning, program formulation, technical analysis, program planning, program control.Test and Evaluation of technology performance. Write test plans, conduct tests, report results.Program Procurement. Write solicitations and serve on Source Selection boards. Coordinate with contracting officers in negotiation, award, renewal, and termination of contracts.Technical Analysis of robotics and machine vision systems. Conduct technical analyses and determine project feasibility. Identify technical challenges and solution approaches. Technical Due Diligence for investment or mergers & acquisitions.

Products and services that complement the consulting done by Griffin Technologies.

Member of executive staff reporting to COO. Responsible for technology development related to image analysis and spectrophotometry. Also responsible for all company software products, over their entire lifecycle. Annual budget of $3M, with staff of 20. Lead technology development of instrument to non-invasively measure blood properties (hemoglobin concentration, hematocrit, white cell count). Formulate research agenda and direct 12-person team in image analysis, physical modeling, instrument design, and clinical evaluations. Lead product development of software subject to regulatory constraints. Responsible for entire software lifecycle. Negotiate and manage subcontracts with software providers and consultants.

Formulate, create, and direct $60M research program on Tactical Mobile Robotics to develop and demonstrate mobile robotics technology, emphasizing machine perception, autonomous navigation, and robotic locomotion. Manage $15M in programs for Self-Aware Reasoning and Control Systems, Tasking and Control, Ship Systems Automation, Subsurface Navigation System Aid, and small business (SBIR, STTR). Skills and experience in program management, negotiation, review and evaluation, contracting, and contract termination.

Principal Investigator (with Whittaker and Simmons) for multi-year, $12M program sponsored by NASA. Research activities in outdoor perception include map construction from sequences of laser scanner and stereo images; position estimation from landmarks and dead reckoning. Research activities in robot systems include integrating and field testing Ambler (six-legged walker) and Ratler (four-wheeled rover). Principal Investigator for basic research program in machine perception, addressing perception of material properties by robotic probing, and 3D vision. Teaching: Computer Vision (junior-level, one semester); Introduction to Artificial Intelligence (junior-level, one semester); Advanced Perception (graduate-level).