Automotive Engineering - August 2021 - 25

ADVANCED R&D FEATURE
Patents are proudly and
comprehensively displayed on
the walls of the NTCNA lobby.
" Our team and Nissan's patent department really worked hard to
make this attainable. "
Nissan's patent department has an activity called Inventshop.
During normal times it takes place in one room where engineers and
researchers brainstorm ideas and map their collaboration. Such physical
contacts didn't happen during the COVID lockdown, Atienza said,
" so we designed a Zoom meeting for this purpose. Added Morgan:
" We had very good results moving Inventshop into Zoom, but it took
some creativity to try to replicate a physical meeting. "
For a team of research Ph.Ds, lack of access to a whiteboard in any
space can be an issue. Zoom does not currently have a tool to substitute
for a whiteboard. " That was a limitation for sure, " Atienza noted.
So were limitations on use of Nissan's laboratories.
" Cenk spent some time in the lab during the pandemic and was
able to perform some experiments, which helped his creativity for his
patents, " Morgan recalled. NTCNA restricted its lab use to two people
working at a time, with numerous safety and medical guidelines in
place. " To do our experimentation, we had to be in the lab; it's not
work we can do at home, " he said.
Shifting to sim
The SOFC researchers realized many learnings from their experience
in developing the patent remotely. Some of the takeaways were positive.
" From the patent side the lockdown experience allowed us to
streamline some of our patent processes, " said Clark. " We were able
to condense some of our typical outside meetings into Zoom calls.
Working remotely streamlined our process in ways that may not
change as things begin to reopen. "
When the pandemic hit and Nissan engineers began scrambling
out of the Michigan and Silicon Valley offices, Chris Ostafew realized
AUTOMOTIVE ENGINEERING
Intellectual property group
manager Matt Clark: " When the
pandemic started, we didn't
know how that was going to
impact our patent activity. "
Use of a simulator built inhouse
enabled AV researcher
Chris Ostafew to continue
development in the lockdown.
one day just how many options were available for remote
communication. " At first on my desktop I had
the following open: iMessage, Text, Slack, Skype,
Zoom, Teams, LinkedIn and at least two more, " he
said. " We all ended up on Zoom for videoconferencing
and Slack for messaging. Outside of North America,
the Alliance organization uses Microsoft Teams. "
AV technology researcher Ostafew earned his Ph.D
in learning-based control for autonomous robots. He
collaborates principally with YM0, Nissan Japan's
Mobility and AI Laboratory. Based on his Ph.D work, he
was asked to develop a trajectory planner, an AV technology
that takes information from the vehicle's route
planner - decisions involving when to stop, go, turn,
merge, etc. - and turns it into a detailed plan trajectory,
which is the body of his patent. The trajectory
July/August 2021 25
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: NISSAN; MATTHEW CLARK; CHRIS OSTAFEW
Automotive Engineering - August 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Automotive Engineering - August 2021
