THIS ROBOT
Will Make Any Car
a Self-Driving Car
It may not be the future we want, but it’s
undeniable that autonomous vehicles are
coming. In the not too distant future, car
and driver will become one and the same,
and the cars we drive ourselves will even-
tually be replaced with those that drive
themselves. But does that mean every
car and truck on the road will need to be
replaced with specially designed autono-
mous vehicles?
Israeli startup IVObility has a better idea.
It is developing a robot capable of driving
ordinary vehicles that weren’t manufac-
tured with their own self-driving capabili-
ties built in—plug-and-play autonomy, in
a sense.
...Even A
Golf Cart
• Israeli startup IVObility is developing a
robot that can sit in the driver’s seat of
an ordinary vehicle and be the driver.
•
The robot does not require the vehicle
to have special drive-by-wire
equipment, because it has its own
sensors and cameras that “see” what a
driver sees.
•
The robot will launch in 2020, at first
for government and commercial
applications that don’t run on public
roads; a consumer-market version is
being considered.
NOVEMBER 2019
27