Pittsburgh: A city once known for the steel industry has become a hotbed of self-driving car research. Uber, Ford and Aurora have local offices, and other self-driving companies are considering a move to the city, according to the local government.
Pittsburgh is home to Carnegie Mellon University, where its pioneering work on autonomous vehicles has occurred for decades. It’s also a long-term leader in engineering and robotics. Red Whittaker, a professor at the university’s Robotics Institute, is often called the godfather of autonomous vehicles. His earliest projects include building autonomous robots to clean up the 1979 nuclear accident at Three Mile Island.