With petrol prices and environmental awareness both on the rise, 'smart cars' constitute an idea whose time is surely coming. They may seem like the stuff of futuristic dreams, but researchers at Chinese University's robotics laboratory are working to make those dreams a reality.
The team, part of the university's mechanical and automation engineering department, has created a type of 'smart car' whose four wheels can all turn, communicate with each other and effectively learn the driver's habits. Their work fundamentally applies robotics expertise to car design.
'There are so many close relationships between robots and vehicles. We consider cars as robots for transport,' said Qian Huihuan, one of the researchers.
'And because travelling is essential to daily life we think we must expand the boundaries of what we can do with them.'
In their latest project, the team - which consists of more than ten engineers - have created a system called the iStarter, which works to automatically stop a car's engine when it idles for more than 10 seconds, but will quickly restart itself when it senses the driver moving out of neutral. Their tests have shown the iStarter can cut fuel consumption by 8 per cent.
'Environmental pollution and the shortage of non-renewable energy are challenging problems, especially now when vehicles are everywhere,' said Qian, an assistant to Xu Yangsheng, pro-vice-chancellor of the university and professor of automation and computer-aided engineering.