In the future, when your car can drive itself, you may well have this little guy to thank. Alternatively, when it gains sentience, bitterly plots against its owner and drives you into a wall, RoboCar will sit, watch and laugh.
In the nearer future, this disarmingly cute RoboCar will be used by researchers to experiment with autonomous vehicle systems, like the ones we’ve already seen from the likes of Mercedes. Each little robot is outfitted with a Maker Faire’s worth of sensors doodads, from CCD stereo cameras image recognition sensors to accelerometers, proximity sensors and Wi-Fi.
The idea is to give researchers a platform on which to test their vehicle control tech that’s smaller, more hackable and, most importantly, cheaper than a, full-size car. It’s not that cheap, at about $6000, but that’s a far sight less than a proper car—especially one that’s been retrofitted for remote control, and loaded up with all the relevant technology. [Tech-On]
