Wednesday, September 16, 2015
Another 'makes you wonder'
Press release from Volvo:
Imagine a robot that quietly and discreetly enters your neighborhood, collects your refuse bin and empties it into the refuse truck. It is done without waking the sleeping families and without heavy lifting for the refuse truck’s driver. This is the purpose of ROAR, a joint project with the aim to develop tomorrow's smart transport solutions. The Volvo Group is currently working on a joint venture together with Chalmers University of Technology and Mälardalen University in Sweden, Penn State University in the United States, and the waste recycling company Renova, to develop a robot that interacts with the refuse truck and its driver to accomplish the work.Not needed and won't work. Not needed because trash trucks already do the heavy lifting. Tomorrow is trash day. You roll your wheeliebin out to the curb or alley tonight. If alley, the bin probably lives in the correct place already, so you don't roll anything. The truck uses its giant claw to lift the bin and dump it into the truck. Won't work because people have fences with locked gates. If you're letting the robot find the wheeliebin, it's going to be blocked by all sorts of obstacles. So: What's the point? Clearly the fences and obstacles are the point. The bin is just a metaphor, like an 'animal model' in medical research. Common trick when running classified military research at Penn State. Oh! This research is also at Penn State. What an interesting coincidence. ¶ 6:45 AM
