Standing for Safe Road Trains for the Environment, the SARTRE project effectively gets groups of up to eight vehicles to all drive together as if they were a connected a train. There is a “lead” vehicle, likely a bus or a truck, that is driven by a professional and this lead vehicle effectively steers and drives the other cars by way of wireless communication. The gaps between the cars are minimized (no more than four meters), which reduces drag and thus improves fuel economy. The project appears to have been quite successful, proving a concept for the future of suburban commuting.

Road trains can be integrated on conventional highways, so you don’t need as much in terms of additional infrastructure. When your car is in one of these road trains, you can kick back and relax, reading a book or playing a game on your tablet. When you get closer to your destination, you take over control of your car, pull out of the road train, and continue on to where you need to be. In this way, these autonomous vehicle trains fit somewhere between conventional single-car commuting and public transportation. It also provides that middle ground toward fully autonomous vehicles, like those being tested by Google.

The SARTRE project was led by Volvo, hence all the Volvo vehicles in the pictures, but this could just as easily be expanded to other cars too. Volvo is saying that these autonomous road trains could be on conventional highways with mixed traffic within the next ten years; the biggest hurdles are legislative. This sounds fascinating and while it won’t be a final solution for mass transit, it does look like it could be very useful in the short to middle term.

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DARPA has a couple of new LS3 (Legged Squad Support System) robots to show off in a new video. The design clearly looks like it was somewhat bovine-inspired, although the part where the “head” would be almost looks like it was partially decapitated. The main purpose of the LS3 is to serve as a pack mule, “carrying heavy gear for troops over rugged, varying terrain.” Wheels and treads simply can’t transverse this kind of terrain the same way that legs can.

What’s cool is that the military personnel won’t need to control the LS3 bot at all, because it can work mostly autonomously; it can be programmed to “follow the leader,” so to speak, as well as respond to verbal and visual commands as needed. The new version has reduced noise (about one-tenth as loud as the original) and a top speed of about 7mph (11.3km/h) over flat surfaces. Even if it falls over, the LS3 can get itself back on its feet.

Dubbed “Big Dog” by builder Boston Dynamics, the DARPA LS3 prototype bots can be viewed in the video below. I can see how this would be great for remote camping trips too, though most people probably don’t have a DARPA-esque budget.

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Developed by the General Robotics, Automation, Sensing and Perception Lab (GRASP), these nano quadrocopters (or quadrotors, if you prefer) are able to fly in various complex formations, navigating through the environment with complex “autonomous swarm behavior.” The very sound of the swarm in the video below gives me chills.

I’m instantly reminded of Michael Crichton’s Prey. The thing with a swarm is that they have a “collective intelligence” of sorts, so it doesn’t matter if you take out one or two units from the group. They operate as a collective, making them virtually unstoppable. Where’s John Connor when you need him?

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