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Nissan is showing off their ‘fish-inspired’ robots, the EPORO at the 2016 Auto Expo. The EPORO robots were designed back in 2009, and made their world debut at the Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies (CEATEC) in 2009.
The EPORO features anti-collision abilities, navigating instinctively and intelligently through challenging terrain by detecting and avoiding obstacles similar to a school of fish, just as future Nissan safety vehicles may have the capability to do. A group of vehicles, presents a far greater challenge in terms of collision avoidance.
Back in 2009, Toshiyuki Andou, Manager of Nissan's Mobility Laboratory and principal engineer of the robot car project said, "We, in a motorised world, have a lot to learn from the behaviour of a school of fish in terms of each fish's degree of freedom and safety within a school and high migration efficiency of a school itself. In EPORO, we recreated the behaviour of a school of fish making full use of cutting-edge electronic technologies, and by sharing the surrounding information received within the group via communication, the group of EPOROs can travel safely, changing its shape as needed."
While we’re still a many years away from having autonomous cars, the technology included in Nissan’s EPORO robots is interesting nonetheless.
