Rental e-scooters have become a common sight in cities around the world with users able to rent them via a smartphone app and park them at the end of their journey. Robin Strässer and David Meister at the University of Stuttgart and colleagues are working on an autonomous scooter that will minimise the manual labour required to recharge and redistribute them.
They have already demonstrated a balancing scooter that can be driven remotely by a human, and have now successfully shown that adding ultrasonic sensors allows it to automatically stop when faced with an obstacle.Currently the scooters can avoid collisions, but not plan a new route around obstacles. Future experiments will see cameras added and control software upgraded to give the scooter a better understanding of the landscape.
Learn more ➤
Subscribe ➤ bit.ly/NSYTSUBS
Get more from New Scientist:
Official website: bit.ly/NSYTHP
Facebook: bit.ly/NSYTFB
Twitter: bit.ly/NSYTTW
Instagram: bit.ly/NSYTINSTA
LinkedIn: bit.ly/NSYTLIN
About New Scientist:
New Scientist was founded in 1956 for “all those interested in scientific discovery and its social consequences”. Today our website, videos, newsletters, app, podcast and print magazine cover the world’s most important, exciting and entertaining science news as well as asking the big-picture questions about life, the universe, and what it means to be human.
New Scientist
www.newscientist.com/