Nissan Study Fish to Avoid Crashes

Did you ever wonder how fish swam in huge shoals without actually running into each other?  Well, the guys a Nissan have and they decided to take inspiration from this and use it to develop tiny car robots which mimic the behaviour of fish, to develop their crash avoidance system.

The Japanese car manufacturers have named these dinky robots the Eporo, who are able to move in a fleet without bumping into other travelling buddies.  They are able to travel around obstacles in groups, and Nissan believe that this technique can be used in cars of the future to avoid accidents and ease congestion.

The robots, which were shown at the CEATEC Japan 2009 technology show, use two laser range finders and ultra-wideband radio to measure the distance between each other as well as other obstacles.  The Eporo cars can travel along at speeds of 1.4km/h, which is less than 1mph, and the constant information via the radio shared between the travelling fish, allow the “shoal” to travel smoothly, side by side without colliding into each other.  Nissan have said that this “Safety Shield” technology could eventually be applied to cars making driving safer and easier.

In larger, more open spaces the robots move in groups, but when a tighter, narrower route is to be negotiated, such as a merge from two lanes into one, they file a single line, while maintaining their original spacing.

The name Eporo stands for “Episode O (zero) Robot”, meaning zero episodes, as in zero accidents and zero emissions.

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