The Future of Nissan is Tied to a Small, Autonomous Robot.
Nissan once again takes the stage as an established element of modern development. Over the last several years the world has seen Nissan grow by leaps and bounds in their quest for top-notch engineering. More recently, we have seen Nissan implement some of the most advanced mechanical technology at many of their manufacturing plants to help prevent employee injury, fatigue, and error. Nissan is also at the forefront of all-electric vehicle technology with their new E-Force system, which is a more powerful, all wheel drive electric vehicle which will make its debut in the Nissan Ariya in 2022. Regardless of outstanding advances, the work at Nissan never stops as they look towards a future of smarter and safer vehicles, which has already taken shape by way of their newest creation, Eporo.
Eporo is a self-driving, autonomous robot. Nissan has developed a group of seven of these robots that comprise the Epora “family.” The Eporo robots were originally released in 2009 to be met with outstanding popularity, and each generation has only gotten smarter. Each head of each robot is colored differently as an identifying marker. The robots also have large, round “eyes” that make them nothing short of extremely cute, which may explain the popularity of their recently released manga series introduced by Nissan.
Nissan engineers turned to inspiration from nature in order to find the key to self-navigation, and the end result was a series of these robots that perfectly mimic a school of fish. By studying how tight-knit groups of fish move together, they could identify key parts to successful group movement. Elements such as how fish can swim in formation while avoiding running into each other, navigating around obstacles, and more. Fish use eyesight as well as pores along their body that detect changes in their surroundings including movement, vibration, and pressure.
Painstakingly, Nissan has engineered the Eporo to mimic many of the movements that they observed in a school of fish. The robots utilize wide band communication to transmit and receive input from each other as they move. They are able to share information with each other regarding each robot’s speed, position, and orientation. All the while, they calculate their own distance apart by noting the time it takes to send and receive signals from each other. Using a laser range finder, they can sense their surroundings and make decisions based on obstacles, road width, and more.
Nissan looks to Eporo for a path forward in their longstanding journey towards intelligent vehicles. Using many of the elements found within Eporo, they look to create a line of safer and smarter cars that use inter-vehicle communication to make collisions and congestion a thing of the past. The Nissan NEXT program indicates a transformation of many of their vehicles by expanding the number of models equipped with the latest driver assistance features worldwide. Under their ProPilot system, it is entirely possible that Eporo-like technology will soon make an appearance in Nissan vehicles worldwide.
