Robotic driving assistant

The GPS devices are widely used today in our cars to help us find our way. The next generation of help is on the way, and it is a far more complex assistant than a GPS. Designed and developed by Volkswagen of America and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (SENSEable City Lab and Personal Robots Group of Media Lab), AIDA stands for Affective, Intelligent Driving Agent.

It is a compbination of a robotic head with an intelligent navigation system, that can familiarize itself with both the city and the driver. It has sensors both inside and outside of the car. The system does far more than showing the way between point A and point B, and it helps the driver to achieve a set of goals, by making necessary calculations and recommendations based on those analyses. AIDA is also able to understand the city not just from the car view, but also from the available information about the businesses, commercial and residential areas events and more in real time.

It also takes into account the driver behavior when making the required calculations, not only the driver habits but his or her mood, and then making predictions and adjusting its behavior. Unusual situations such as gas running low or traffic conditions are always taken into account as well. The work is still a prototype and not in commercial stage yet, but will likely hit the shelves sometime soon. For more, see the video below:

You can see more information and the press release here.

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