Selasa, 04 Oktober 2011

Transportation of the Future–Fancy!




Throughout the twentieth century, visions of the future have almost invariably included flying cars. It’s an understandable idea, of course; personal automobiles have been the dominant means of transportation for generations, and as cities build skyward, it only stands to reason that our roadways would head that direction, too. But with fuel costs being what they are (and likely to keep climbing), and high-altitude collisions a terrifying prospect, future transportation might need to move in a different direction.
Engineers are increasingly moving toward innovative methods of public transportation as the way of the future. One proposed system is called PRT, or Personal Rapid Transit. PRT is a sort of mixture between rail travel and a taxi service: small cars (something like 3-6 passengers) zipping along a city-wide web of elevated rails. Since you’d be traveling along or in a small group, there would be no stopping on the way to your destination, and no need to wait for the next train. Just hop into one of the fun-sized people movers and off you go.
PRT systems have the capability to reduce traffic and pollution, reduce commute times, and, depending on the design, offer non-stop transport on demand. Some places are already working on PRT systems; the emirate of Abu Dhabi is building a whole new city, Masdar, which will forbid automobiles entirely in favor of mass transit and a new PRT network. Morgantown, West Virginia has boasted a primitive version of PRT with its inter-campus people mover system since the 1970’s. It has it’s flaws, of course, but then again it’s almost forty years old. Technology has come a long way since it was first built, but so far the Morgantown PRT hasn’t been substantially updated.
PRT is not as sexy as flying cars, I’ll admit. Few things are. But until there are parking garages hovering over downtown Nashville, PRT could be the next best thing.

ROBOT FRIEND ASIMO






ASIMO (アシモ ashimo?) is a humanoid robot created by Honda. Standing at 130 centimeters (4 feet 3 inches) and weighing 54 kilograms (119 pounds), the robot resembles a small astronaut wearing a backpack and can walk or run on two feet at speeds up to 6 km/h (3.7 mph), matching Hitachi's EMIEW.[1]

ASIMO was created at Honda's Research & Development Wako Fundamental Technical Research Center in Japan. It is the current model in a line of twelve that began in 1986 with E0. ASIMO resembles a child in size and is the most human-like robot HONDA has made so far. The robot has 7 DOF (Degrees of freedom) in each arm — two joints of 3 DOF, shoulder and wrist, giving "Six degrees of freedom" and 1 DOF at the elbow; 6 DOF in each leg — 3 DOF at the crotch, 2 DOF at the ankle and 1 DOF at the knee; and 3 DOF in the neck joint. The hands have 2 DOF — 1 DOF in each thumb and 1 in each finger. This gives a total of 34 DOF in all joints.[2] Honda will not confirm how much it costs.

The name is an acronym for "Advanced Step in Innovative MObility". Online magazine, The Future Of Things (TFOT), states that Honda did not name the robot in reference to science fiction writer and inventor of the Three Laws of Robotics, Isaac Asimov.[3] The name ASIMO is also a pun meaning “feet, too”. アシ (ashi) is commonly translated as “feet” but can also refer to the lower leg from the knee down and モ (mo) is a particle meaning “also” or “too”, thus ASIMO (アシモ ashimo) roughly translated can mean “it has feet, too” as is appropriate for a robot with legs. The transliteration of アシモ as “asimo” uses the Kunrei system of romanization rather than the more familiar Hepburn system of romanization which renders it as “ashimo”. In both cases it should be pronounced “ah she moh” to match the original Japanese pronunciation.
As of February 2009, there are over 100 ASIMO units in existence