Tejas Gokhale is an emerging leader in a branch of engineering known as computer vision, where machines use sensors, cameras and complex software programs to perceive the world around them.
From self-driving cars to airport security scanners that screen luggage for dangerous contents, the use of this technology is on the rise and is rising in importance.
Gokhale is an assistant professor of computer science at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. He received his doctoral degree in computer science in 2023 from the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University. He explains the focus of his ongoing research.
“The goal is not just to mimic human vision, but to study the problem computationally without really being limited by human vision,” Gokhale says. “We seek lessons from all over the natural world. In the animal kingdom, birds, insects and bats all have different kinds of visual sensors, and if we can learn from them, we can create good systems. During celestial events like eclipses, tree leaves act as natural pinhole cameras and project images of the sun on the ground — it’s all quite fascinating.”
Strides in computer vision can help experts build robots that are better capable of doing dangerous jobs, improve traffic control and provide the health care sector with better imaging tools for disease diagnosis.
Gokhale is also at the forefront of studying how artificial intelligence, or AI, can be used to drive advancements in computer vision. Much of his recent work has focused on the development of AI-powered algorithms, or set of instructions computer programs use when operating, to allow machines to more efficiently interpret the data they receive from their inputs.
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