Online Engineering School Adds Self-Driving Car Program

Udacity Inc., a Silicon Valley-based online high-tech education provider, is launching a curriculum to help engineers and software specialists develop autonomous vehicle technologies.

The nine-month course costs $2,400 and is expected to require about 10 hours of work each week. Classes, which will be divided into three 12-week semesters, will start in January.

Last week Udacity launched an online contest to develop a self-driving car based on partner Tier IV Inc.’s Autoware operating system. The company predicts 10,000 people will participate with suggestions about refining the software.

Udacity says more than 30,000 people have expressed interest in the self-driving car program, which will be limited to 1,000 people per semester. Prerequisites include experience in programming and mathematics.

The curriculum includes courses on computer vision, sensor fusion, controllers, vehicle kinematics, automotive hardware and “deep learning.” Corporate partners supporting the program are BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Didi Chuxing, Elektrobit, McLaren, NextEV, Nvidia and Otto—the San Francisco-based startup specializing in automated-driving technology for heavy trucks that Uber acquired in August.

Sebastian Thrun, the former head of Google Inc.’s self-driving car program and computer science professor at Stanford University, launched Udacity in 2012 after more than 160,000 students in 190 countries applied for his free online course on artificial intelligence. In addition to AI and self-driving car engineering, Udacity offers so-called “nanodegree” programs related to virtual reality development, machine learning, predictive business analytics, smartphone development, data analyst and web development.