Japanese researchers have launched footage of a humanoid robotic known as Musashi sitting within the driving seat of an electrical micro-car to look at a potential future path for autonomous car applied sciences.
The present push for autonomous autos just about follows the identical path, the place applied sciences resembling LiDAR, imaginative and prescient cameras, GPS, complicated algorithms and controls techniques are put in all through the Johnny Cab and work collectively to securely navigate metropolis streets and past.
Not less than that is the final concept, though real-world deployment has been one thing of a blended bag of successes and headline-grabbing failures. However what if automobiles did not have to pack all this superior tech to get from A to B with out a human driver on the wheel? That is the path that College of Tokyo researchers and Musashi are headed.
Musashi is a “musculoskeletal humanoid” developed by the analysis group in 2019 as a testbed for studying management techniques. The shape issue not solely has comparable proportions to a human counterpart but in addition contains a “joint and muscle construction” impressed by the human physique.
The robotic has now discovered use in an autonomous driving challenge the place it has been educated by members of the Jouhou System Kougaku Lab to grasp driving in the same technique to people. With various levels of success, as you’ll be able to see within the video beneath.
Towards Autonomous Driving by Musculoskeletal Humanoids (RAM 2020)
Musashi’s head is residence to a high-resolution imaginative and prescient digicam in every movable eye, which may pan and tilt to acquire completely different views of the world – straight forward, for instance, or rapidly checking aspect mirrors. 5-digit fingers on the top of jointed arms flip the steering wheel as decided by the training software program and sensor knowledge, whereas additionally having the ability to pull the handbrake, flip an ignition key and function flip signaling. And grippy ft push down on brake and accelerator pedals when wanted.
The humanoid sits within the driving seat of a enterprise variant of a single-seater electrical micro-car named the COMS (Chotto Odekake Machimade Suisui), which was launched by Toyota in 2012. The workforce geared up the car with a Wi-Fi router and Intel NUC PC to run the popularity module in addition to a servo energy provide, although expects such issues to be integrated into future humanoids.
Kento Kawaharazuka et al
The actual-world driving assessments have been undertaken on the College of Tokyo’s Kashiwa Campus, the place Musashi hit the brakes when a human was detected or a automobile horn sounded, and likewise responded to site visitors lights. However it wasn’t all clean going, because the software program wasn’t educated to deal with inclines so sustaining a relentless crawl up hills proved problematic, and turning a nook took minutes somewhat than seconds.
However it’s clearly very early days for autonomous driving by humanoid. Assuming growth continues apace, potential benefits to this technique over automobiles kitted out with autonomous driving tech may embody the car itself not needing to be modified, and the robotic driver having the ability to undertake different duties between journeys (resembling carrying the buying or switching roles to family helper). The researchers additionally say that the sensor-packed robotic may function a crash check dummy for automakers.
A paper on the challenge was first offered at ICRA 2021 is now out there on arXiv.
Sources: JSK, Kento Kawaharazuka
