Posted on July 22, 2010 by Elizabeth Pagliacolo | Comments
Categories: Events, Green design
ShareAs reported by the Associated Press (and seen on NPR.org) Italian engineers have sent two unmanned cars to China in an experiment set to have a huge impact on the future of automotive technology.
In what will be the longest such trip ever embarked upon by vehicular robots (three months, 12,875 kilometres), the two tangerine Piaggio Porter vans will travel through Moscow, the Gobi desert and arrive in Shanghai on October 10, thanks to lasers and cameras that scan for and react to any possible obstacle.
The Associated Press article goes on to explain that the project funded by the European Commission's European Research Council, is enabled by technology developed in the University of Parma's uber-high-tech spin-off company VisLab. The longview is that this auto-odyssey (christened The VisLab Intercontinental Autonomous Challenge) will contribute to a future where driverless vehicles transport goods across Europe.
Live video streaming of the entire journey is available on VisLab's website. Or, follow the study on Twitter at twitter.com/vislab.
Photo by Antonio Calanni/AP
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