Ever wondered if the cars of the future would move like a shoal fish? Well, it surely may be a possibility with the direction in which the reserarch team at Nissan is heading for. Nissan recently revealed its tiny robot car named EPORO which is designed to mimic the swimming pattern of a shoal of fish. The robot car can travel in group of cars and can avoid collisions with other obstacles including its traveling companions.
Though the Japanese car maker Nissan claims that they got the inspiration for the design of EPORO from fish, the car robot resembles a lot to the Jawas in Star Wars. A formal launch of the EPORO car robot is planned at the CEATEC Japan Design Fair 2009, this week in Tokyo, Japan. The robot car Eporo is available in various colors, including pink and brown, and also have tiny eyes just like those of the Jawas in Star Wars.
The robot cars by Nissan use ultra-wideband radio and laser range finders to determine how far it is from other obstacles and the cars in the group. They communicate with each other through radio signals to avoid collisions with one another or other obstacles.
This is not the first time that Nissan has been inspired by the animal kingdom. The Nissan Biomimetic Car Robot Drive or BR23C concept was inspired by the flight of the bumblebee. The Japanese automaker points out that fish can change their direction abruptly while swimming without bumping with other fish. They can also travel side by side with other fish while keeping a certain distance between each fish.
Nissan Eporo is the first robot car in the world that can move together in a group by communicating its position and other information within the group via modern communication technology. Nissan predicts that this new technology will be used in future passenger cars to avoid collisions and accidents.
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