The MagiKarpet: Driving a Car with a Game Controller

Team Robottermilk Puncakes is back for another 24-hour build session at OHI/O.  This time we made a floor mat replacement that can fully control a car.  The goal was to be able to drive the car from a 3rd person point of view, like in a video game.  A device like this could be used to easily retrofit existing vehicles for remote control.  Installation takes about 15 minutes, and it’s pretty cheap.  This could be useful for military applications, where old vehicles could be remotely driven in front of a convoy in areas where there may be IED’s.  It could also have commercial uses, specifically in disaster scenarios where supplies or vehicles need moved, but the area has become unsafe for humans. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ok_ntlTiLM

Nice idea.

Nice work and idea.  Like you said, the military applications are interesting and lifesaving.  I guess operating transmissions, even automatic ones, is the next great challenge…guess I am being obvious.  I hope you post your progress.

Are the actuators fast enough to make the vehicle controllable?  Any big lessons learned?

yep,

all the actuators are running at bellow 50% speed so we have time to unplug it if something goes wrong.  I think speed will be fine at 100.  We need to work on the code more before doing more testing.  

Very cool! Great idea and

Very cool!  Great idea and amazing how far you got with so little time.

Regards,


Bill 

Some drivers can be pretty

Some drivers can be pretty ingenious, but even though the new gadget looks amazing, it is not indicated to use a robot to drive your vehicle while you are on public streets. This kind of technology may have been used for the best automated parking systems to create easy systems to be used by the drivers.