The latest offering by Nissan is its school of fish EPORO Robot Concept Car which mimics the behaviour of fish in the water. This concept is designed to travel in group of vehicles, mimicking the behavioural pattern of a school of fish in avoiding collision with each other.
Nissan will demonstrate this breakthrough technology with a group of six EPOROs when they make their world debut at the CEATEC JAPAN 2009, October 6 – 10 at the Makuhari Messe.
In developing EPORO, three rules of fish behavior were applied to its driving control.
Fish behaviour Rules:
Collision Avoidance — look after avoiding collision with other fishes.
Traveling Side-by-Side —travel close to nearest fishes with a minimum distance to avoid contact or collision.
Get closer —move closer with the other fishes to fill in the gaps in between.
Nissan initially revealed its �anti-collision� technology in 2008, with the BR23C robot based on the behavioral characteristics of a bumblebee.
Though the bumblebees, like fish, demonstrate anti-collision abilities such as detecting and avoiding obstacles and collision, bees tend to move alone while fish travel in schools. Nissan studied the behavior of groups of fish, as it better mirrored a traffic environment.
This is the world’s first development of a robot car that can travel in a group by sharing the position and information of others within a group via communication technologies.