Robot Tiles were created by Hiroo Iwata, a professor working in the VR lab at the University of Tsukuba in Japan. Each robotic vehicle is covered with a layer of Kuralon EC, a touch-sensitive conductive fabric that detects where pressure has been applied by the walker’s feet, predicting where they will take their next step. A set of ultrasonic sensors relay the position and orientation of each tile back to a central computer that tells them where to go next. Here’s a video clip showing off the Robot Tiles in action:

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See – it’s sort of like an infinite walking surface. While you have to walk really slowly for the tiles to have enough time to get into position, I didn’t ever see the pedestrian wipe out and fall on the floor, so they are doing what they’re supposed to do.

While I can’t think of too many real-world uses for this technology, Iwata points out that they could be perfect for providing a realistic walking surface within virtual reality applications, which could be kind of cool. But until they can speed these up, I’m keeping my feet on the ground.