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Mercedes Benz, Udacity Launch of a Sensor Fusion Nanodegree Program

The Mercedes Benz and Udacity program will provide potential students a unique opportunity to learn about the most innovative autonomous driving technology

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DQINDIA Online
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Mercedes Benz

Udacity, the Silicon Valley-based lifelong learning platform, is all set to train the next generation of engineering talent in self-driving car technology by expanding its learning partnership with Mercedes Benz Research & Development North America (MBRDNA). As part of the association, the platform has announced the launch of the Sensor Fusion Nanodegree program, built in collaboration with Mercedes-Benz.

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The Sensor Fusion Nanodegree program will provide potential students a unique opportunity to learn about the most innovative autonomous driving technologies by completing projects in lidar obstacle detection, radar obstacle detection, camera and lidar data fusion, and Kalman Filters. Its cutting-edge curriculum has been designed by Udacity’s course creators in close collaboration with the Mercedes-Benz research team. The program will be guided by the autonomous driving team at Mercedes-Benz and self-driving car experts at Udacity – including Sebastian Thrun, Udacity’s Founder and a pioneer of self-driving car technologies. Apart from this, the program comes with services like increased 1-on-1 mentorship, career coaches, access to real-world projects and a flexible learning plan.

Commenting on the latest association with Mercedes-Benz, Sebastian Thrun, Founder, President and Executive Chairman at Udacity, said, “I have been working on self-driving cars for almost 15 years because I dream of a world where transportation is safe, fun and accessible to all. As Mercedes-Benz pioneers some of the most audacious innovations in the field of self-driving, we are thrilled to partner with them once again to devise a new Nanodegree program.”

Michael Maile, Manager of the Sensor Fusion and Localization team at MBRDNA, said, “Sensor fusion is a crucial component of autonomous vehicles at Mercedes-Benz. Our partnership with Udacity is offering a great way of teaching engineers how to work with lidar, radar, and camera sensors to perceive the driving environment.”

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Ishan Gupta, Managing Director - Udacity India, added, “Demand for Self-driving vehicles and smart mobility will create a great demand for professionals who are skilled in this technology. I am sure that the Sensor Fusion Nanodegree program will only And with a richer learning experience backed by services like 1-on-1 technical mentorship, career coaches, flexible learning plans and real-world projects, I am sure that our students have better career growth opportunities.”

In 2016, Udacity became the first company to offer online learning programs around self-driving car technologies, partnering with Silicon Valley-based MBRDNA to design its Self-Driving Car Engineer Nanodegree program. Since then, it has partnered with several domain-leading companies to provide a world-class curriculum that delivers the latest industry knowledge through expert instructors, while enabling unique hiring opportunities.

The Self-Driving Car Engineer Nanodegree program alone has received 21,000+ enrollments in over 120 countries till date. Many of these graduates have landed jobs with employers including Audi, BMW, Bosch, Jaguar Land Rover, Lyft, and NVIDIA. Mercedes-Benz itself employs over 40 Nanodegree program graduates from around the world.

Through its extensive Nanodegree programs designed for self-driving technology, Udacity has enabled learners with minimal programming competency to experience the thrills of building self-driving cars. Successful graduates of Udacity’s Flying Car Nanodegree program have joined a growing vanguard of highly-skilled autonomous flight engineers. Students enrolling in the Self-Driving Car Engineer Nanodegree program can also test their skills in the real world, including on the company’s own self-driving car in a Silicon Valley test lot.

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