Dr. Ajay Kumar is a computer science researcher specializing in autonomous systems. He earned his bachelor's and master's degrees in Computer Science from the University of Mysore, India, and completed his Ph.D. at Chung-Ang University in Seoul, South Korea.
Before joining the University of Minnesota, he was a postdoctoral researcher at Missouri University of Science and Technology, where he worked on enhancing autonomous navigation for the Boston Dynamics SPOT robot. Previously, at the Future Automotive Division of the Daegu-Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology (DGIST) in South Korea, he contributed to software development for Level 4 autonomous driving and played a key role in securing a commercial autonomous driving license from the Korean government.
His research expertise spans autonomous mobility in both unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), with a focus on LiDAR-camera-based object detection, sensor fusion, SLAM, and 3D mapping. His current work in connected autonomous vehicles (CAVs) involves developing, testing, and demonstrating teleoperation, V2X communication, and cooperative perception technologies.
