In an effort to get self-driving cars on the road by the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics, Japan is working to digitally chart the nation’s major roadways with special mapping technology to create detailed 3D data sets. Dynamic Map Planning, a joint venture of various automotive companies,  is crunching data on hundreds of miles of expressways to producing highly accurate positioning data.

The 3D maps will contain road grades, structures, signs and other elements of the built environments, helping vehicles slow down ahead of traffic lights, sharp turns and reducing traffic congestion. Sensor data can help cars navigate their immediate surroundings but struggle with complex road patterns like off ramps, especially in wide roads with fewer close-proximity clues (or multi-level highways).

The combination of high-resolution 3D maps and sensors will enable the accurate detection of which lane a car is in and the distance to junctions. High-precision surveying technology is required to make the maps, so Mitsubishi Electric developed equipment that will be installed on a canvassing vehicle. GPS will track the location of the car on the map, and sensors designed to detect the inclination of the car will measure the road grades.

At the same time, data including the locations of road signs and traffic lights, as well as right- and left-turns and pedestrian crossings, will be collected using lasers. The survey data will be displayed as a collection of dots. Lines on the road, such as lanes, noise barriers and road signage, will be plotted on that image to faithfully recreate road conditions for 3D maps.

The post Japan is Developing Spatial 3D Maps for Self-Driving Cars first appeared on Gajitz.

Autonomous vehicles are more than just a means of easier ground travel; they are poised to become huge disruptive for both lodging and air transit industries, places to relax and snooze while going from A to B.

With respect to planes, self-driving cars offer the convenience of staying in one vehicle throughout one’s entire trip, avoiding time and annoyance at the airport, which might be worth slightly-longer travel times. Likewise at hotels: people have to plan and reserve, or at least stop, check in and out, but not if they can sleep on the road while their car takes them wherever they want to go even more restfully than a redeye flight would. The key point in both cases: not having to stop and get out provides passengers with a lot more freedom and options.

In turn, cars will increasingly look like mobile motels themselves, reconfiguring seats into different positions but also reshaping entirely to reflect the drop in some needs and additional requirements on other fronts. Seats can become more like sofas or beds, or unforeseen hybrids based on the special needs of users in a new era of travel. Driving is no longer going to be about sitting behind the wheel, but about whatever we want it to be, from community interactions to reading, resting or even work activities.

“Today’s cars are shaped to be only an emotional piece and to be very comfortable and safe,” says a senior executive at Audi. “So in an autonomous world, if cars do not have accidents any more, the cars do not have have a small amount of glass, a lot of metal, a lot of bumpers and all that stuff. It could be a bit more transparent. Once you decide you want to go for an autonomous drive or a piloted drive, then something happens in your car, so your car transforms inside and the interior changes.”

The post Driverless Cars Set to Disrupt Airline & Hotel Industries first appeared on Gajitz.

Can anything make your heart sink faster than hearing a pathetic clicking when you try to start your car? Your battery’s dead again and, thanks to good old neighborhood unfriendliness, there’s no one around to give you a jump start. You don’t belong to an auto club, and none of your lazy friends will come give you a ride.

Self-described crazy engineer Medhi Sadaghar of ElectroBoom shows us a rather unusual way to start a car with a dead battery using things that the average engineer (and a lot of other people) will have just lying around the house. The video above gives an overview of using a series of AA batteries to give your car battery just enough juice for a single start.

After soldering together a few AAs with wire, Sadaghar connects the batteries to the car battery – but be sure to connect positive to positive and negative to negative or your batteries will start smoking just like his. The setup basically pours the batteries’ juice into the car battery. It gives it just enough energy to turn over the engine one time. Tada! You’ve now got a running car and you didn’t even have to talk to any scary strangers in the process.

The post Fire it Up! How to Jump Start a Car Using AA Batteries first appeared on Gajitz.

When it comes to mind-blowing vehicles, the military (and military-funded development) seems to be at the top of the field. This hulking beast is half truck, half helicopter, and it’s meant to give the military an upper hand in hostile environments. The Black Knight Transformer from aerospace company Advanced Tactics, Inc. is able to fly like a helicopter, drive like a truck, and – with a little tinkering – navigate water like a boat. In the video below, the Black Knight Transformer goes on its first test flight. It only hovers 10 feet above the ground for a short time, but in the field it will be able to fly quite a bit higher while carrying payloads of up to 4000 pounds.

The UAV turns into a heavy-duty truck when on the ground; its propellers fold up and the truck can handle rough terrain. The vehicle is modular and scalable to make it useful in a large variety of situations. The drive train is removable so that the Transformer can be fitted with a boat hull, making into a tough amphibious vehicle. The autonomous transport machine will be able to go into dangerous and remote locations to deliver supplies or recover injured soldiers. And, let’s be honest – a boat/truck/helicopter is just really freaking cool.

The post Triple Threat: Military UAV is Helicopter, Truck + Boat first appeared on Gajitz.

The Strandbeest began as an art project of Dutch artist Theo Jansen in the 1980s. Today, amateur Strandbeest enthusiasts are building their own walking beasts and putting some unique spins on the idea of a wind- or gravity-propelled walking sculpture. I-Wei Huang, an artist and tinkerer, has come up with what might be the cutest version yet: a hamster-propelled Strandbeest.

After receiving a mini Strandbeest kit from Gakken Magazine, Huang set out to create a unique propulsion system for the little plastic critter. He though about steam, but realizing that plastic and steam don’t exactly get along well, he scrapped that idea for a far more adorable one.

Huang modified the small Strandbeest to include a hamster ball on top. He hoped that, as the hamster ran inside the ball, its weight and movement would be strong enough to propel the machine along. He added some cogs and a chain that would activate the Strandbeest’s legs and move it forward with the hamster’s movement.

The artist didn’t have a pet hamster himself and wasn’t interested in keeping one as a pet, so he borrowed a hamster named Princess to test drive his contraption. It clearly worked very well, and it made for an oddly beautiful vision: a tiny animal running quickly while the mecha-legs below seemed to creep along slowly. In any case, Princess the hamster got to feel large and powerful for a few minutes while running right past a seemingly disinterested cat.

The post Hamster Powered Walker Ushers in Era of Rodent Rule first appeared on Gajitz.