Day: August 4, 2020

3 Questions: John Leonard on the future of autonomous vehicles

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As part of the MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future’s new series of research briefs, Professor John Leonard teamed with professor of aeronautics and astronautics and of history David Mindell and with doctoral candidate Erik Stayton to explore the future of autonomous vehicles (AV) — an area that could arguably be called the touchstone for the discussion of jobs of the future in recent years. Leonard is the Samuel C. Collins Professor of Mechanical and Ocean Engineering in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, a member of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), and member of the MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future. His research addresses navigation and mapping for autonomous mobile robots operating in challenging environments.  Their research brief, “Autonomous Vehicles, Mobility, and Employment Policy: The Roads Ahead,” looks at how the AV transition will affect jobs and explores how sustained investments in workforce training Continue reading 3 Questions: John Leonard on the future of autonomous vehicles→

Little Wheeled Robot Puts on New Shoes to Go Offroad

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When designing a mobility system for a robot, the goal is usually to come up with one single system that allows your robot to do everything that you might conceivably need it to do, whether that’s walking, running, rolling, swimming, or some combination of those things. This is not at all how humans do it, though: If humans followed the robot model, we’d be walking around wearing some sort of horrific combination of sneakers, hiking boots, roller skates, skis, and flippers on our feet. Instead, we do the sensible thing, and optimize our mobility system for different situations by putting on different pairs of shoes.  At ICRA, researchers from Georgia Tech demonstrated how this shoe swapping could be applied to robots. They haven’t just come up with a robot that can use “swappable propulsors”—as they call the robot’s shoes—but crucially, they’ve managed to get it to the swapping all by Continue reading Little Wheeled Robot Puts on New Shoes to Go Offroad→