Volvo Testing Automobile Train Concept - SARTRE Project

Volvo and a handful of other companies are testing a system known as SARTRE (Safe Road Trains For The Environment) which would allow commuters to line up behind a lead vehicle and create an autonomous train, well autonomous for everyone but the lead vehicle. The benefits are said to be environmental, in safety, and in productivity / time savings as the riders in the trailing cars can leave the driving in the hands of the lead vehicle's operator and focus on other tasks.

I'm in awe of the technological achievements displayed in the following video, and at the same time have a bunch of questions and concerns, many of which the researchers are already considering as demonstrated.

Autonomous Robots Used By Staples, Zappos, and Gap

Autonomous robots are making order picking easier for several big retailers. The robots made by Kiva Systems look like an over-sized orange Roomba and are charged with the task of finding the appropriate shelf that holds an item and delivering that shelf to a picking station where a human picks and packs the product.

"It's a major game-changer. There's no question about that. You can increase productivity immensely," said Michael Levans, editorial director for a group of supply-chain trade magazines like Logistics Management. "The Zappos guys claim that from the moment you put your order in and it is submitted to the time the box is on the dock and ready to be put on a truck is 12 minutes."

Check out the video...




Source: Wired

MIT's Autonomous Wheelchair

MIT researchers are creating an autonomous wheelchair that can learn the locations in a given building, and take its occupant to any given place in reaction to a verbal command. "It's a system that can learn and adapt to the user," says Nicholas Roy, assistant professor of aeronautics and astronautics and co-developer of the wheelchair. "People have different preferences and different ways of referring" to places or objects, says Roy, the aim is to personalize each wheelchair to its user and the user's environment. The wheelchair requires a first time guided tour to learn about it's environment, with the user providing verbal clues as to where it currently is. For instance, as the wheelchair is pushed around for the first time, the patient or a caregiver would say: "this is my room" or "here we are in the foyer" or "nurse's station." MIT News has the complete story here.

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