Automated Parking As we wait for a future where cars autonomously park themselves after they have transported us around, it is currently possible to get your car parked by a giant robot. Automated parking towers are able to store a vast number of cars very efficiently (saving time and space). Th…
At RobotShop, we're lucky enough to see hexapod robots every day, but sometimes there are some hexapods which are more impressive than others. Mantis Giant Hexapod We recently discovered "Mantis", a 2.8m tall, two ton hexapod vehicle created by Micromagic Systems. The project took four years …
Kuratas Ride-in Giant Robot The Japanese did it again. This time they are fulfilling the dream of pretty much any robotic geek: to have your own functional giant Battle Mech that can be piloted by a grown adult and used to cruise through the city and defeat all your arch-enemies. Suidobashi heavy…
The giant Internet retailer Amazon announced earlier this week the acquisition of Kiva Systems, the creators of a ground-breaking robotic order fulfillment system. The transaction will amount to a whooping 775 M$. See the video below to have a better understanding of why Amazon believes this ro
Volvo keeps innovating with their safety and autonomous driving technology. We remember the autonomous urban trains from some time ago, now they have developed what they call "City Safety Technology" for their 2011 S60 This technology basically monitors the car's surroundings and applies the brake
SaRTrE Volvo Auto Train Volvo is testing their new Safe Road Trains for the Environment, which basically means, cars that drive autonomously. The system is intended to be used on highways where a lead (human driven) truck will be followed by autonomously driven cars. The cars will receive instr
The MadeInGermany (MIG) car was developed by researchers from the Freie Universität Berlin. The Modified Volkswagen Passat uses, LiDAR, Radar, cameras, GPS and more to navigate the streets of Berlin autonomously. In the system demoed below, a human used an iPad to summon the autonomous Taxi
Google Autonomous Car Google, the ubiquitous Internet giant, is leaning more and more towards robotics. Google's interest in robotics started with the clever naming of their Android cell phones, and continued with their acquisition of several UAVs. Now, they are road testing fully autonomous ca
Core Biped Transport Robot The Core project, by fuRo, the Future Robotics Technology Center, consists of a very large biped robot that can carry up to 100 Kg. It is meant to be a human transportation vehicle but we can envision how it could become a three meter tall rampaging humanoid quite easi
Here's a very special robotics development: Its 4 independent robots but which are capable of regrouping together to move and even fly off. Invented at the Swiss Federal Institute, these robots can communicate amongst themselves and know precisely their positions in relation to each other. Once…
If there's a new current trend in cars, excluding the ecological aspect and "green car", it's the number of tests and ideas of robotic cars which are appearing. Volkswagen has invented a car prototype (a robotic Passat) that reverse parks all by itself, and while executing a controlled slide if yo…
What if there were no more cars on our streets in a few years and instead they were replaced by robots? In any case, that's the assertion of Stéphane Malandain, a compter science lecturer in Switzerland. And he's not talking about 40 years' time but well before. The streets will be fill…
The Volkswagen Automotive Innovation Laboratory in Stanford (VAIL) has presented to the press a prototype of a car which drives and parks all by itself. Botjunkie was on hand to report this video in which we see a Passat driving on its own and reversing in a parking lot. The ceremony took place i…
Here is the cream-of-the-crop automobile: an autonomous car (that drives itself, like the Knight Rider K 2000). This is the robot-guided Audi TTS, named Shelley and developed by engineers at Stanford University in California. We had already seen it in a video before but this time the car will ta…
