One reality is certain: Hyundai motor company is ambitious for the development of its robotics. So far, the automaker has been willing to put money to its lips, most notably the acquisition of Boston Dynamics, which valued robotics pioneers at more than $1 billion.
It is foreseeable that robotics will take center stage in this week's company's CES demonstration. Last month, Hyundai offered a sneak peek in the form of a four-wheel modular mobile platform, mobile Eccentric Droid. Today, the company outlines broader plans for the future with its new "meta-mobile" concept.
Hyundai motor company will reveal more about its strategy, and we will talk to some executives to better understand what it might look like in practice. Currently, this broad idea is being proposed under the banner of "Expanding the Human Reach", with the aim of finding a role for mobility and robotics in the metaverse of virtual reality. At this early stage, it's hard to separate buzzwords from actual meaning, but a major component seems to be the use of hardware as a kind of real-world agent for VR interactions.
For now, we can only say that there are a lot of big promises around the lack of operability, which has long been a fundamental problem for VR applications. Here is the view of Chang Song, President of Hyundai Motor Group:
The idea behind "meta-movement" is that space, time, and distance will all become irrelevant. By connecting the robot to the metaverse, we will be able to move freely between the real world and virtual reality. Going a step further with the immersive "immersive presence" agent experience offered by the metaverse, robots will become an extension of our own bodily senses, allowing us to reshape and enrich our daily lives through meta-movement.
The near-term, plausible use of this technology is to use remote control operations to control manufacturing robots. This is also the content of the T-HR3 system that Toyota has been exploring for a long time. The company notes that Microsoft's manufacturing cloud could serve as a gateway to this kind of remote control work, and it's not hard to imagine that such a system would have some practical capabilities.
Other applications are a bit farther away. Hyundai wrote in a press release, "When users visit their digital twins in the metaverse as they leave their physical homes, they will be able to feed their pets by using an avatar robot." This will enable users to enjoy a real-world experience through VR."
At the moment it seems mostly conceptual, though Hyundai motor Company offered a hands-on demonstration of what they might eventually look like at THIS week's CES. Given the number of people currently attending shows virtually during the pandemic (including TechCrunch), it's at least easy to imagine how remote operations will play out in the future.
Bringing robotics to inanimate objects, as well as the transportation industry
Hyundai doesn't spend all its time on CES in the metacosm. The company has also launched a concept called "New Mobility of Things," which will use robotics to autonomously move inanimate objects, regardless of their size.
Under this new IoT concept, there is a product called Plug & Drive, referred to as PnD for short. This single-wheel unit features intelligent steering, braking, in-wheel electric drive and suspension hardware, as well as lidar and camera sensors to detect objects and navigate around them.
These PnD modules are designed to attach to objects, such as desks in an office. Users might order the desk to move closer to them, or schedule the desk to move at a certain time when the office needs more space.
"PnD modules are adaptable and scalable to match human needs. Because in the world of the future, you're not going to move your stuff, it's going to move around you," said Dong Jin Hyun, vice president and head of the Robotics Lab at Hyundai. "PnD moves objects that are normally inanimate. It is this ability that makes it possible to change almost any space. This is a way to configure space on demand. "
Hyundai motor company demonstrated some of the applications of PnD, including a personal transportation system that can transport individuals to waiting for a bus, a pod equipped with four 5.5-inch PnD modules, and then connect itself to this "mother bus".
Theoretically, the bus would stop, and the pod (the person sitting inside) would continue the last mile to reach its destination.
Hyundai Motor Company showed the idea in a video about an elderly woman whose cane was delivered to her through a single PnD before she climbed into the pod and pulled onto the waiting bus, an idea directed at the aging population. However, if it becomes a reality, it could be used to provide first- and last-mile public transportation without the need to add a large number of large single-person cars to the roads.
Hyundai motor company also showed off another concept called "Drive and Lift" (or DnL), which is a module designed to lift objects. Hyundai combines DnL with its Mobile Eccentric Robot (MobED). The DnL is mounted on each wheel of the ModED, enabling it to lift up and down, even as the robot traverses uneven terrain or low obstacles such as steps or speed bumps.