Berkeley, California - An article in IEEE Spectrum is shining the spotlight on the UC Berkeley connection to two of Google’s most high-profile innovations: self-driving cars and Street View cameras.

In 2011, Google acquired 510 Systems, a small Berkeley startup founded by Berkeley engineering alumni Anthony Levandowski, Andrew Schultz and Pierre-Yves Droz. The startup is credited with developing the underlying technologies used in Google’s state-of-the-art car and the Street View system.

Levandowski has won several awards for his inventions throughout his undergraduate and graduate studies. In 2005, Levandowski and a team that included Berkeley undergraduate Bryon Majusiak entered the DARPA Grand Challenge to create fully autonomous ground vehicles. They made their mark by building the only robotic motorcycle in the race, and by using GPS signals and a stereo camera for navigation.