One thing that robots have trouble with is walking through crowds. It comes very naturally to humans, but robots, not so much. Well, a team from Stanford University is working on making robots that can move alongside humans. Jackrabbot for example, can navigate down streets without running into people coming from the opposite direction.
The name Jackrabbot comes from the jack rabbits that hop around Stanford’s campus. They are testing this guy out on the Stanford campus, where they will get data from its movements, crashes, and other situations. The plan is to take a traffic avoidance algorithm they’ve developed and integrate it, so that the robot can one day make its way through crowded streets like a champ. It probably bump into us and pick our pockets too.
The droid looks a bit fat if you ask me, especially with that tie riding high on it’s gut. I’m sure the next generation of the Jackrabbot will be more aesthetically pleasing. While Jackrobbot cost quite a lot to make in its current form, its makers hope that someday, a commercial model could be available for as little as $500.
[via Daily Mail via Damn Geeky]
