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Robotics + Car = Hallucigenia
News for nerds writes "I4U has news about a new transportation concept, called The Hallucigenia 01, which is a working 1/5 scale vehicle prototype, designed by Japanese design firm Leading Edge Design. PC Watch (Japanese) has photos and movies. Its 8 wheels are independent robotic arms controlled by their own satellite CPUs, interconnected to the main CPU by an internal LAN."
It looks like a spider crossed with a skateboard. I wouldn't drive that.
Are they implying that the idea for the car came from a night spent tripping on acid.. or... ??
Then you can use it as your casket after you smear your brains all over the windshield during a crash.
I have been pwned because my
Why does it need to have multiple computers networked? Doesn't this add latency that could be very dangerous at high speed? Wouldn't one computer, rather than several, with the proper sensory and control hardware be a better choice? Will I only use question marks to end sentences in this post?
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Soon we will hear the deep voice of Darth Vader saying "I find your lack of bandwidth disturbing..."
Why did I think of that? I dunno, maybe it's because the car looks kinda like Darth's friggen head..
How can I give these guys money?! Someone tell me quick... nevermind, the drugs are losing their effect.
This probably wont be as bad as those kids that dropped all those bouncy balls off a four story building, with a 650 meg video for download on the front page.
Looks like a mouse droid to me. Meep, meep.
I know that japanese tend to be small but somehow that thing doesn't look to roomy...
That's right, "Hallucigenia"! You can get really drunk or drop acid until you Hallucinate, and our Hallucigenia will take you home safely.
Bet your puny Explorer can't do that!
Hallucigenia! Yeah, now that's the nice schnizzit!
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
"I find your lack of bandwidth disturbing..."
And the poor server gets on its knees, gasping.
I already got a "OPEN Hallucigenia Web Site
Leading Edge Design" on the site, and nothing else.... oh, the
Do the wheels play multiplayer Quake with each other in their spare time?
Is the communication between the wheel and the brake done using XML protocols?
Do the wheels send an email to your mobile phone when your refrigerator has run out of milk?
Critical Joke Possiblities OVERLOAD
Brain Terminated.
Will code a sig generator for food
One of the central tenents of all good engineering is "As complex as is needed, and NO MORE." Any more you add after that point is just "more to go wrong".
Eight wheels, eight suspension systems, eight control systems. True, perhaps the system is designed with failure in mind, but think about owning this as a vehicle for normal use - how often will you be taking in to be fixed, because one or more wheels have broken?
It's just like the fools who buy 4 wheel drive SUVs when what they need is a minivan - now they have what amounts to a whole extra powertrain to go wrong.
Now, if the intent was for this to be used in unusual circumstances (forestry work, extreme rough road work or the like) I could believe this was "as complex as needed but no more".
www.eFax.com are spammers
GM also came up with the "skateboard" design, the only difference that i see is this one has more wheels, more gdgets, and better control; which may be good for suspension and stability, but it makes me wonder as to the economy of producing a full scale unit, due to cost, complexity, maintenance and later on replacement (as if replacing 4 tires wasnt expensive enough). Not to say that this vehicle doesent have a bright future, heck, im guessing this will make one helluva city car. They did borrow one good thing from GM though, for if this car gets mass produced the owners or factory, will be able to change "skins" (IE top part of the car) intermittently.
Live for the present, learn from the past, and dream of the future!
That's what must have been powering their webserver... I have a mental picture of a car pulled off on the side of the road, hood open, smoke coming from the engine...
Trippy
I have been pwned because my
It is a little animal found in the Burgess Shale of Canada. See the Stephen Jay Gould Book "Wonderful Life" for details. Here is a picture:
l
http://www.karencarr.com/gallery_hallucigenia.htm
To prove that a mass production fuel cell powered automobile won't sell. This will go just like the EV1. Great concept. Great design. Zero marketing. Ludicrous rules such as "lease only". And then they will go to the government and complain that they can't sell them but the technology they created will help a gas powered full size pickup get 1 more mile per gallon.
And then the Japanese will do it and once again steal the American auto industry's lunch just like the 80's with the quality gap (which still exists today).
From looking at the pictures, it seems that the wheels can rotate perpendicular to the length of the vehicle. Should make parallel parking a breeze.
"Leading Edge Design next seeks to realize their ultimate ranger vehicle -- car-Voltron's left foot!"
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
Gah think of the road noise.
It would stop on dime tho...
I say we name it Shelob...
I don't know wheter this model can or not, and the wheels are toys in this model, but the think should be able to turn the wheels flat and use them as rubber feet and WALK over obstacles. I like the idea. Complicated gizmo, though.
``L'imagination au povoir.''
OVERKILL.
Lets not get fancy with the GPS guvey just because we have it. I dont see the scenerio that is going to require each wheel on a fixed platform base to 'fix' it's position from space in order to move around on a bit of little earth. Perhaps if it was nurual learning computer that fixed it's position from space, learned from it and added that terriain information to a database for relationshional logistics, fields and scenerios. Not to discredit them, its still a neat-o project, just too long on the imagination and too short on the practability. But untill they reach a level on something akin to NASA's crawler http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/facilities/crawler.htm l. I'll reserve real judgement.
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Mirrors:
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Still #1 -- Lonely Gay Geek
Hallucigenia means "Dream Children" and is a name of a small worm belonging to the Burgess-Shale collection of fossils
Researcher Simon Conway Morris had probably been working overnight a little too often, since he mistook the fossil for an eerie monster-like creature with a blob like head and spikes for legs, thus dubbing it "Hallucigenia". See the picture. Looks a little bit like Alien, doesn't it?
It was only in 1991 that this strange little animal's anatomy was correctly interpreted as a worm, the Onychophore, with spikes on it's back and tentacles or, better, pseudopods for walking (and probably eating).
I wonder if the pictures of this car are upside down...
Hack your mind out of its sandbox.
Well, it does a great job of navigating over the rough terrain of that flat smooth table top. Whats the point again?
It was a long time since I was 1/5th scale!
Engineering is the art of compromise.
it's too small and the wheels are solid which means that it will be a bumpy ride.
Jeez... are you misinformed.
Car companies DO NOT CARE what fuel you use, they just want to sell you a car, any car. The reason for the "lease only" terms of the hybrid cars is that after about 2 years, the huge bank of batteries they have crap out. Customers would not be happy shelling out 50% of the original price to replace the batteries.
Car manufacturers are very very conservative when it comes to implementing new technology, the costs of retooling and the reliability unknowns make them very weary of mass producing new(very different) cars. New models, even significant redesigns usually retain 80 plus percent of the previous models parts.
For example, electronic ignitions (the thing that replaced points) took over 20 years to go from after market accessory to standard feature.
To recap, Car companies are not evil and don't care what fuel you use, they are VERY cautious because mistakes are very expensive.
Oh, and where do you suppose we are going to get all of this super cheap hydrogen in the future?
Also it can drive through a slalom without changing the direction of the body. I hope they include standard travel sickness bags, because that's just begging to make people throw up.
The ability to travel in one direction while independantly rotating in another (and it looks like this eight legged freak can do that to an extent) is called holonomic motion. Robotics people have been doing this for years with something called an omniwheel. Basically its a wheel that contains many other smaller wheels that roll perpendicular to the axis of the big wheel.
6 -4CM-ROL LER.htmlg ins/MivaEmpre sas/miva?plugins/MivaMerchants/merchant.mvc+Screen =PROD&Store_Code=KCWD&Product_Code=2052-38&Categor y_Code=Transwheel2 :) )
We can do holonomic motion with as little as three wheels (popularlized by the palm robots from carnegie melon). Of course, four wheeled models have been made.
And I really think that it is from the four omniwheel concept that will really revolutionize travel, not this eight legged, asking to break down, feat of engineering.
(Of course, mandatory info links:
The wheels found on the palm robot:
http://www.acroname.com/robotics/parts/R7
Cheaper, and larger, omniwheels:
http://www.omniwheel.com/cgi-bin/plu
The above are one of each, there are many more on both sites. Just start url hacking
This
when you can smoke dope and fly? Once upon a time I was a passenger in a car when the driver got the passenger to rack em out & hold up the lines just under his face. He took his eyes off the road, took a careful look, pinched up the spare nostril and carefully did a line, going back for the bits he'd missed. Eyes back to road, slight swerve, drive on like 'no big deal...'. Jeez, he was a helluva boss... **DISCLAIMER** Consuming illegal drugs is dangerous and Bad. Doing so and then driving is criminally irresponsible. Doing so WHILST driving suggests you should be in hospital, preferrably before you get carried there in a blue-light vehicle. Apart from a spot of weed late at night on those empty motorways...
Everything I needed to know about life, I learnt from Blake's Seven
Ok, one thing I think drivers expect, is the following interface:
One steering wheel.
One gas pedal
One brake pedal.
Some gauge things, that lie about how fast you are really going.
And if you drive a manual, like me:
One clutch.
One shifter.
Now, how do you modify something simple and ingrained like the above interface, which btw has stood since Ford put out the model T?
Answer, you cant. Result: customers have to learn an entirely new control mechanism. Very bad.
This
Seen modified in the center here:. htm
5 4/ref=sib _dp_pt/102-3299208-5287367#reader-link
http://www.bbakira.co.uk/animevmanga/gangs
or here on the cover of the 3rd Manga volume:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/15697152
This car would be great...
more control to the robots the better
Robo-Blogs of the world: UNITE!
Imagine 13 year old Jimmy saying saying to his friend, "My neighbor's got hallucigenia in his garage. Oh yeah, every once in a while he takes it out and we go on a trip!"
Look it's a joke about my sig IN MY SIG! LOL!
fristy frost and frosty frist, the fritzen blitzen schietzen fritzed! are two "d", too? flagrant flames and friendly facts, who makes such aerobic bats? no one like you, face the news, and go make me some fragant blues!
brought to you by Burma Shave, king of the information superhighway.
We can now safely increase earth's people-capacity by 2 or 3 fold. 20 billion babies is not out-of-the-question. This is a very good thing, I believe.
I suggest you read Slashdot
The entire point of my post is that the US auto industry isn't slow to change. It doesn't change at all. They'd rather keep on the same course with no changes and no innovation. Fuel cells and BEVs are so different that the Big 3 want nothing to do with them.
>>For example, electronic ignitions (the thing that replaced points) took over 20 years to go from after market accessory to standard feature
Because some company said they could manufacture them for less than 80% of the old style points. And the Big 3 never looked at the new tech a moment beforehand.
>>Car companies are not evil
It has nothing to do with being evil. Toyota sells the Prius and Honda has the Civic Hybrid and Insight which all get about double the mileage of an ICE-only powered car of the same size. When those vehicles first went on sale, not a single one made money. It was considered an extended research project. Now, every one of them is profitable. Next year will see a hybrid Lexus RX330 (called RX400H) and Toyota Highlander, hybrid Honda CRV and Element. Toyota will happily sell you a license to mass produce their Hybrid Synergy Drive. Nissan has a license. Why bother making such products when their ICE-only vehicles sold just fine? No one forced them to do it. They did it because they can.
In two years, two Japanese companies will have at least seven hybrid vehicles available for sale. The Big 3 will have only two (Ford Escape and Chevy Silverado "Contractor's Edition" mild hybrid). From the standpoint of technological innovation (which includes quality as well as horsepower, MPG, emissions, features, etc), who would you want to buy a car from?
That's why they'll eventually have their giant killer robots, while we're still optimizing the super-sized cup-holder layout for our pickup trucks.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Main CPU is 400MHz 64bit NEC Processor.
called ATOM.
Satellite CPU would be same or nearly equally powerful(cost) processor,I assume.
From what I can tell from the pictures all those individual arms leave the car without any clearance. You would have be drving the car on a perfectly smooth road. A pothole or debris in the road would cause major problems.
Long live the Speaker Bracelet
Rolo D. Monkey
In my
previous post on the new industrial revolution I discussed how the impact of
robotics and cad design would result in more variety seen on the road.
This post will focus on the technological impact these will have on car features
and safety.
1 wheel is good, 2 wheels are better, 4 are better still. When you
start to go into 8 wheel designs you start to run into problems with friction
(due to bad wheel alignment). This isn't noticeable on vehicles carrying
large mass (such as semi trucks) because the momentum of the mass keeps the
vehicle going in a straight line, but on small less than 2 ton vehicles one
wheel out of alignment would be very noticeable. Although technology
exists to re-align your tires on the fly exists, current auto makers have yet to
implement that type of self repair into their vehicles. Instead they rely
on good old physics and mechanical engineering to figure out how best to tune
the suspension for maximum performance.
With robotics and sensors implemented mechanical suspension systems will be
obsolete. Cars like this one will make adjustments on the fly to suite current
road conditions, instead of the specialized approach used by automakers today.
If you want to go really fast, you buy a car with a big engine, low to the
ground. If you expect to be driving on rough terrain you buy a 4wd vehicle
with adequate ride clearance. Shouldn't transportation be able to adapt to
it's environment?
The main reason automakers take this specialized approach is so they can
break the car market into different segments. Instead of creating a cheap, one
size fits all vehicle we get many choices that are basically the same ideas all
rehashed in one form or another so they can appeal to a wider audience. Jim bob
likes his ford f150, soccer mom likes her GMC suburban, Gary geek loves his
prius hybrid. For the most part though, all these cars still have the same
wheels, drive train, suspension as the other does. How can one justify
that as truly different?
Because of our new industrial revolution and the rising computation power of
electronics, we'll start seeing things like self driving cars as standard
equipment. This will in turn drive down the prices of material logistics
for manufacturing plants as they will no longer have to rely on teamsters unions
to deliver materials or finished products to market. With robotic factories and
robotic delivery bringing the labor cost down to near zero, hopefully we will
see the prices of these new vehicles drop in line with that of the manufacturing
costs. An added benefit to the consumer will be the inclusion of these new high
tech features as standard option packages.
Right now is a transition time to this new industrial revolution. I
know in the long run my children will benefit from both the choice and low price
of these internationally produced goods. As more of the world produces a
product, their need for this product increases as well, whether it be cars, IT
services, computers, or what not. Demand creates necessity, which turns into
invention.
We won't see much of the old technology on the road in 20 years. By then the
57 Chevy will be 66 years old, old enough to collect social security if it still
exists. I think the car of the future wont look anything like the car of
the present because of all the variety that will exist.
J1850, CAN... nothing special about that. Cars have had "internal LANs" for decades.
The interaction is certainly becoming more pervasive, though: Don't try removing your factory stereo in the upcoming models, as you car will not work correctly (No, Windows is NOT involved, either)
the japanese take on the club sandwich. I bet it's smaller and more efficient.
I came to the datacenter drunk with a fake ID, don't you want to be just like me?
I don't suppose this is the same company as the one that made Leading Edge computers in the 1980's. They were some of the earliest IBM PC clones available.
Anyone else thinking the big jawa moving city thing from EpIV
that'd be so much cooler if you could make it iced out with fatty rims and stuff. And hydraulics.
..run fast enough to avoid a /.ing?
And yeah, I say it's a mouse droid.
You have to be on hallucinagens to want to own one if those things. It's extinction can be predicted with good accuracy.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
They have cars kinda like this in Heavy Weather, by Bruce Sterling. The sucky part of it, though, was that when the car's OS crashed, well, you got a really dramatic reminder of the origin of the 'crash' metaphor. So the software has to be stable, and when it fails, it has to fail gracefully, or you're in trouble, especially on the highway.
It brings new meaning to the phrase "Blue Screen of Death." Pray it doesn't use embedded Windows.
Eagles may fly, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
My version of the rule: Keep It Simple, Stupid.
This car kinda reminds me of those funky cars in Minority Report, how they can move sideways and go vertical without the passengers feeling anything.
Founder of Mirror Moon - Tsukihime Game Trans
... the precursor to someone building a Tachikoma?
Don't just stand there, get that other dog!
I'm guessing the designers made this in Rhinoceros. It has that "oh, look how cool I am, I'm using NURBS for the sake of using NURBS!" look to it. Someday, the 90 degree angle will only be seen in museums and archive footage.
Slashdot requires you to wait longer between hitting 'reply' and submitting a comment.
I certainly don't want a vehicle so orientationally confused.
oh brave new world, that has such people in it!
This looks like the exploration vehicle
from Hal Clements "Mission of Gravity"
from ~ 1955
"Critical Joke Possiblities OVERLOAD
Brain Terminated."
Oh, well, at least that prevented n^4eedles from imagining a Beowulf clus*THUD*...
And then the next door neighbor blows Jimmy's Dad's head off - just like in American Beauty.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
Microsoft sure doesn't use those silly butterfly guys in Japan!
Music speeds up when you yawn, but does not change pitch.
Shouldn't that be "CAN"?
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Hallucigenia, is just the main body of the new MegaZOrdPower Tron Galactic Defender Robot!!!!!
The head will be a Lion shaped Plane, the arms will be Snake and Gator shaped Buses, and the legs will be Centipede trains.
The combined vehicles will be filled with Happy Super fun time awesome POWER!!!!
No word yet on whether or not there will be a Flaming Sword.
Actually, changing direction without changing yaw, though impressive, seems problematic to me. Imagine the guy in the next lane taking the curve while his car still points straight. Isn't he going to hit my car since the LANE curves while the body of his car doesn't?
... that I fit into most Japanese cars (all but the super-small ones) and I don't fit into most American cars.
At 6'2" most American cars in my price range are neck- and back-destroying.
I understand excessively fat people don't have this problem, apparently American autos are marketed to people with overconsumption problems. Illuminating if true, neh?
But isn't the central "problem" of transportation the power plant? All the degrees of freedom motion is cool, but what's the problem that it's solving? Wouldn't it still need to be powered by ICE, hybrid or battery?
If your bitterest enemies are people who hack the heads off civilians, then I would say you're doing something right.
...when it comes to potholes.
Just imagine driving that thing through Midtown...
/.
The control system was designed specifically for people like you.
Incredibly boring car to drive - you just point it and go, it acts like what you expect and not like what it is. And I've never been able to get it to break contact with the road without doing bad-crazy maneuvers (60 MPH on sheet ice did the trick, and I came pretty close to rolling it doing 90 coming down an off-ramp).
I enjoy driving unloaded manual-shift rear-wheel-drive pickups at high speed over ice during whiteouts, so I generally find the Prius driving experience to be lame. Too much control, too little to do.
--Charlie
Down with population control! Kill the abortionists! Hooray for the human monoculture!
We didn't need all those other creatures anyway, and if God wanted us to preserve nature he'd have said so in the Bible.
Mmm, human flesh. Tasty!
I'd honestly like to see this thing drive away from an accident still mostly intact. I don't think this system looks very robust. It looks to me like any kind of impact would seriously damage one or more of the wheel assemblies, especially if you pit one of these things against an SUV.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Buckminster Fuller designed a car, it was large and tear-droped shaped that could roll sidways and in a complete circle with the front of the car facing the center during the circling turn. That one had three wheels tho.
x /chronol ogy.html
Heres a couple of links:
http://www.washedashore.com/projects/dyma
http://www.thirteen.org/bucky/car.html
all THREE of you are ON TEH SPOKE!!!!!!1112
reminds me of stan mott's cyclops...all it needs is the single headlight;-)
But not anywhere as much surface as a tracked vehicle...
And if you need to move beyond the ability of wheels... I think surface is a big concern: mud, sand, snow, oiled slippery surface, &c. Both for traction and to spread the vehicle's weight and not sink.
``L'imagination au povoir.''