Brandon Tseng

um it and like every one of shield ai's products is working like this the software modules that make up this ai pilot or this autonomy stack you have a state estimation module state estimation is like where in the world am i you have a mapping module it builds a map uh you have a controls module you have uh right that's like how to actuate motors um yeah you know your your steering mechanisms um you have um

a reasoning model, what we call global reasoning.

You can think of this as like the mission.

Is the mission to go inside a building and clear it of threats?

Is the mission to dogfight F-16s?

Is the mission to find surface-to-air missile systems?

Like what the mission is.

That's what the reasoning module is.

Then you have like a path planning module, which is like, okay, what are the steps that I'm gonna take to execute said mission?

So those are the different software modules that make up an autonomy stack.

The way that it operates without GPS, it's building a map of the room, its environment, whether it's using cameras, whether it's using LIDAR, whether it's using radars to basically build a map of its environment.

And then it's estimating its position based on the map that it's built.

Again, I think a lot of people try to overcomplicate autonomous systems.

At the end of the day, you and I, we are autonomous systems, and we operate the same way these robots do in the sense that we sense the world with our five senses.

Then we think about the world using our brain, and then we actuate our muscles automatically.

supported by our skeleton to maneuver around the world.

When we come into this room, we don't think about it this way, but we've made a map of this room in our head and we can now navigate off of this map.

I know that wall is 10 feet away.

This wall is eight feet away, right?

You're six feet from me.