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."

Comments

I don't get it

[TWX]

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?

Yes. Great. More to go wrong.

[wowbagger]

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".

Re:Yes. Great. More to go wrong.

[drinkypoo]

The question is, how many wheels does this thing need to drive? If it can drive on four wheels then this is safer than a car. If it needs all eight (or close to it) then it's less so.

BTW, they make AWD minivans, too. And everyone needs AWD because it's more stable all the time, at least if you have limited slip diffs. (And viscous limited slips just about never wear out, before you object to THAT.)

Oh sure, people can live without AWD... but plenty of people dead today would be alive if they had it. Those people who died because they were hotdogging would have done something even more ridiculous with AWD and thus could not be saved, but I'm not talking about them :P

Re:Yes. Great. More to go wrong.

[Rick the Red]

I guess you missed the picture of it climbing stairs, staying level on hills, and changing direction 90 degrees without changing yaw. That's why it has eight wheels.

Re:Yes. Great. More to go wrong.

[Uma Thurman]

This is the modern car with the modern computer controlled internal combustion engine you're talking about. If you've looked under the hood recently, you'd see that 4 extra wheels could only add a tiny smidge to the complexity that's already there.

GM built the Autonomy (skateboard) for one reason

[Anonymous Coward]

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).

Interface

[bpb213]

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.