Nissan School of Fish-Inspired Robotic Cars May Reduce Accidents
If it promises to bring down altercations brought about by road rage too, I’m all for it.
Nissan’s robotic concept is designed for groups of cars. The basic idea is patterned after the behavior of fishes when moving in a school. See image below.
EPORO Robot Cars, as these robotic cars are called, are going to be equipped with lateral line sense and sense of sight capabilities. The cars’ movements are supposed to be governed by three fish-based behavioral rules: collision avoidance, traveling side-by-side, and approaching.
‘Collision avoidance’ will allow them to avoid collisions with other cars even while change directions. ‘Traveling side-by-side’ will enable them to move at the same speed as the other cars near and around them. Finally, ‘approaching’ will allow the cars to move as close to each other as possible.
If all these will be achieved, open spaces between cars can be reduced thereby maximizing road sizes; each vehicle in a group can move as fast as the fastest car; and most of all, collisions can be avoided.
At first glance, this idea may seem feasible especially for vehicles traveling in practically the same direction, e.g. in the same lane. Fishes in a school move at blazing fast speeds, weaving through corals, going to one direction then another in a blink of an eye. And they seem very peaceful going about their business. Not that I know what’s going on in their minds.
I’m just curious how Nissan’s engineers are going to tackle problems like, who goes first? I mean, sure we haven’t seen fishes going through an altercation. =) But maybe that’s because their brains are too unsophisticated that they don’t mind if one fish goes ahead of them. Many people usually fume mad when somebody cuts them off or overtakes them.
Anyway, this new technology will be demonstrated by Nissan using six EPOROs during the CEATEC Japan 2009 on October 6-10 at the Makuhari Messe. Maybe then, the folks at Nissan will be able to enlighten us some more.
