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Fish-bots Could Lead to Safer Cars

by Matthew Zuras on October 2, 2009 at 07:34 AM

Engineers at Nissan Motor in Tokyo have developed robots that mimic the collision-avoiding behaviors of schools of fish, with the hope of one day incorporating the technology to make cars safer. The fat, adorable, quizzically Japanese-looking creatures roam in groups of seven and escape crashes by sharing information from laser range finders with one another via radio, allowing the group formation to change safely as they ride. Nissan will demo the fishbots at CEATEC next week.

We're not credentialed ichthyologists here at Switched, but those 'bots look and act like no fish we've ever seen. Apparently some fish do actually make sounds and have the ability to hear, but not by radio waves. And seriously: these robot fish have frickin' lasers!

We applaud the effort and the manga-esque design (lack of verisimilitude notwithstanding), and this technology will hopefully save lives if it's ever incorporated into cars. But then again, do you really want a fish-minded autopilot to take over while you're driving? Well, maybe if you're texting. [From: AFP]

Tags: ceatec 2009, Ceatec2009, fish, nissan, robots, tokyo, top

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