A team of MIT researchers has been collaborating for years in a research project with the city of Amsterdam.
The goal of the study is to develop a robot boat that makes up an entire fleet of fully automatic vessels. A group capable of navigating the many canals of the Dutch city without a human guide.
Last June, after having developed the locomotion and orientation system, the researchers announced the ability of the "robot boats" to proceed both alone and by hooking up to each other.
After only two months, showing a huge acceleration of the processes, the team made a new announcement. The automatic fleet has acquired a new capacity: to change shape and configuration along the way.
A tetris on water
Last week the MIT team has published a paper at the International Symposium on Multi-Agent and Multi-Robot Systems. The publication details the algorithm that allows the robot boat to start sailing one way, separate from its “colleagues” and then rejoin them while sailing.
This ability can make the fleet even more versatile, allowing it to make the most of Amsterdam's 165 navigable canals.
“A group of robot boats can come together to form a bridge if there is a need to suddenly transport materials from one side of a canal to the other,” says the researcher Daniela Rus. “On market days, boats can join together to form large floating platforms capable of hosting shops, and so on.”
In other words, not just a means of river transport based on autonomous vehicles, but a true system of intelligent infrastructures that assemble and separate when necessary.
The proof of 9
The team will probatively and decisively maintain the system in 6 months, creating the world's first bridge over water consisting of a fleet of robot boats joined together in a walkable strip of 60 meters.
Will it withstand an intense flow of pedestrians? The road is marked, but I would not like to see unwanted dives, not even in the testing phase.
