This Tiny EO2 smart car is flexible and can drive sideways too!

Modern day cities are getting too crowded. Driving in heavy traffic or parking your car during rush hours can be quite challenging. This tiny flexible robotic car EO2 developed by a team of researchers at the DFKI Robotics Innovation Center in Germany can be the answer to all these problems.

The EO2 is a small comfortable electric car ideal for single individuals as big cars take up so much space. The car is white in color with butterfly doors and big windows. All it’s four wheel can rotate by 90⁰ becoming perpendicular to the body. These wheels allow the car to spin in a circle and even drive sideways. This feature could help tremendously while parking as even an expert driver many times finds it difficult to park in small spaces.

The EO2 weighs about 1,653 lb and its body can compress from 2.5 m to 1.5 m (from 8.2 ft. to 4.9 ft.) because its panels can slide up over each other slightly, keeping its 4 wheels on the ground.  It can slide sideways into parking slots somewhat like a crab.

Check it out in the following video:

EO2 smart car also has an auto-navigation system and many other functions to assist the driver. Its auto-pilot can drive the car safely and it can even park autonomously on narrow or congested roads.

The researchers are also developing the ‘Platoon’ concept to connect several such smart cars to each other on the road forming sort of a train of cars. The driver in the platoon can choose the autonomous mode and take his hands off the wheel. He can relax or read something while the car drives itself.

You can see it in the video below:

The car is still in the prototype phase and there is no word from the research team about when the EO2 smart car will become commercially available to consumers.

This Tiny EO2 smart car is flexible and can drive sideways too!

Tesla’s autopilot isn’t anything sensational but it’s quite cool

Tesla had announced its autopilot during the unveiling of its dual-motor all-wheel drive sedan Model S. “We’ve been able to accelerate autopilot and bring it to market faster than originally anticipated,” said Elon Musk to a gathering at its facility in Southern California. “It’s actually in production. In fact, every car coming off the line at Tesla at the factory has the autopilot hardware.“

The autopilot that is installed in the new Tesla cars is a “bundle of hardware and software” that allows the car to take control when running on highways, park by itself in the garage and even intervene when it senses that you are on a collision course. This is an advanced autonomous driving system but if you think the autopilot will drive the car around while you sleep comfortably at the wheel or when there is no driver at all, think again.

All the new Model S vehicles that roll off the assembly line will have a sensor package containing radar, ultrasonic sensors and forward-facing cameras which are new to Tesla, but other automakers have already been offering them. For instance, the Lexus HS250h of 2010 could drive by itself on highways by controlling the steering, acceleration and brake, through dynamic cruise control and lane-keep assist systems.

This was achieved by using a combination of cameras and radar just like the Tesla, but Tesla’s is more sophisticated as the technology has advanced considerably since then. Steer Assist present in Mercedes 2014 S Class is somewhat similar. Some BMWs are capable of reading speed limit signs like the Tesla Model S. Audi has demonstrated car parking by itself and picking you up unattended. However, full autonomy in cars will still take a few years. Tesla is also promising to make its system more advanced over a period of time.

Google has logged thousands of miles for its driverless car but it still hasn’t solved the problem of heavy rain and snow although it has a wider range of sensors than what Tesla is using. Making a car that can transport you safely by itself is a pretty challenging task but hopefully in the next few years, there will have been much more progress on this front.

 

Via The Verge

Tesla’s autopilot isn’t anything sensational but it’s quite cool