A new breed of ’droids that are about to take to the world’s pavements.
The latest, called Gita, was unveiled earlier this month by Piaggio Fast
Forward, a subsidiary of Piaggio, an Italian firm that is best known
for making Vespa motor scooters. Gita’s luggage compartment is a squat,
drumlike cylinder that has been turned on its side. This, as the picture
above shows, is fitted with two wheels of slightly larger diameter than
the drum. These let the whole thing roll smoothly along, keeping the
luggage compartment upright, at up to 35kph (22mph). Normally, though,
Gita does not travel anything like that fast. Instead, it follows at
walking pace a metre or two behind its human owner—or, more accurately,
an electronic belt that the owner wears. A wireless connection to a
stereoscopic camera on this belt lets it map its surroundings, better
enabling it to trail its owner around street corners or through doors.
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One problem faced by the designers of ’bots such as these is that unlike
roads, which have well-established rules, lane markings and traffic
signals to guide autonomous vehicles using them, the pavements running
alongside those roads are what roboticists refer to as “unstructured
environments”. People can walk, jog or roller-skate wherever they please
on them, and there is an ever-shifting array of dogs, prams, signs and
rubbish to avoid, as well.
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