A crew of roboticists on the College of Tokyo has taken a brand new strategy to autonomous driving—as a substitute of automating all the automotive, merely put a robotic within the driver’s seat. The group constructed a robotic able to driving a automotive and examined it on a real-world monitor. In addition they printed a paper describing their efforts on the arXiv preprint server.
Nearly all efforts to construct a self-driving automotive have centered on making the automotive itself autonomous—people sit within the passenger seat or within the again. These efforts contain including a number of sensors along with processing energy. They’ve additionally been met with blended outcomes.
On this new effort, the analysis crew questioned if it may not be simpler and cheaper merely to construct a robotic that may be taught the best way to drive a automotive and put it within the driver’s seat of a standard automobile. To search out out if that is perhaps attainable, they constructed such a robotic and examined it on a monitor on the College of Tokyo’s Kashiwa Campus.
The robotic is known as Musashi and it was designed to function in a lot the identical approach as a human automotive driver. To that finish, the researchers created what they describe as a “musculoskeletal humanoid”—a robotic with two arms and two legs, with ft and arms, a torso, neck and head.
![The movable eye unit, the flexible musculoskeletal hand with machined springsand the foot with six-axis core-shell structural force sensors. Credit: arXiv (2024). DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2406.05573 Researchers wonder what if you just put a robot in the driver's seat instead of automating the car?](https://scx1.b-cdn.net/csz/news/800a/2024/researchers-wonder-wha-2.jpg)
In addition they gave it movable eyes, every geared up with a high-resolution digital camera. The jointed arms have arms with 5 digits, and the ft have “grippiness” to make sure exact management of the fuel pedal and brake. The robotic has a pc, in fact, with software program for coaching and to function the brains of the robotic when driving.
After constructing their robotic, the analysis crew put it in a small electrical automotive after which despatched it off for some take a look at driving. Along with merely driving round, the robotic was examined on its means to acknowledge and reply to things in its path, together with people.
The crew reviews that preliminary testing was encouraging, although they acknowledge that Musashi is a good distance from being able to drive on a public street.
![Humanoid Musashi. Credit: arXiv (2024). DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2406.05573 Researchers wonder what if you just put a robot in the driver's seat instead of automating the car?](https://scx1.b-cdn.net/csz/news/800a/2024/researchers-wonder-wha-1.jpg)
They plan to proceed their work to search out out if enhancements would result in a robotic having the ability to drive higher, or no less than extra safely, than the common human being.
Extra info:
Kento Kawaharazuka et al, Towards Autonomous Driving by Musculoskeletal Humanoids: A Research of Developed {Hardware} and Studying-Based mostly Software program, arXiv (2024). DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2406.05573
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