In Japan, a fully robotic vehicle car should be launched in November, for companies or laboratories working on the car with power steering or automatic.

The G Robo Car sale soon? This was announced by a Japanese magazine, Techno!. The gear is not quite a surprise. It relies on a different model Robo Car, ten times smaller and already marketed since June 2009. Manufactured by the MPA , the wheeled robot is autonomous , bristling with sensors and concentrates a large number of technical innovations.

Two CCD cameras, giving a stereo vision, looking forward while the immediate environment is probed by eight sensors radiation infrared ray and a laser can detect an obstacle.

The Robo Car, 42 inches long and 20 wide. The robotics can play in the program in many ways, including a tool software known Matlab / Simulink. © ZMP / Nikkei Electronics

The information gets to the computer with embedded operating system is Linux and is based on a circuit including image analysis, Imp Car , made by NEC. The software also use internal data provided by the acceleration sensor in three axes and those installed in the engine and the wheel hubs.

One day, the lead car
The device is not a toy but a platform for research to develop techniques and algorithms for fully robotic gear. In the U.S., the agency Darpa, which depends on national defense, finance research on autonomous cars and even organizes competitions car robots (the Darpa Challenge ).

The Japanese, it seems, are no exception. A robotics team from the University of Gunma joined MPA to make this version of the G Robo Car, then size. Its dimensions remain modest, however, and she does not welcome a single person.

In addition to systems already on the model, it will be equipped with GPS , radar and sonar. The Robocar G will then become the guinea pig to thank you for robotics private companies or research laboratories working on the car of the future and ways to automate as much as possible driving.