robot 機器人

At MIT researchers are working on a self-navigating wheelchair that can learn the geography around it through simple voice commands, and then travel around using the map created within its computer brain.

Unlike other attempts to program wheelchairs or other mobile devices, which rely on an intensive process of manually capturing a detailed map of a building, the MIT system can learn about its environment in much the same way as a person would: By being taken around once on a guided tour, with important places identified along the way. For example, as the wheelchair is pushed around a nursing home for the first time, the patient or a caregiver would say: "this is my room" or "here we are in the foyer" or "nurse's station."

Outdoors in the open, such systems can rely on GPS receivers to figure out where they are, but inside buildings that method usually doesn't work, so other approaches are needed. Roy and Teller have been exploring the use of WiFi signals, as well as wide-field cameras and laser rangefinders, coupled to computer systems that can construct and localize within an internal map of the environment as they move around.

For now, the wheelchair prototype relies on a WiFi system to make its maps and then navigate through them, which requires setting up a network of WiFi nodes around the facility in advance. After months of preliminary tests on campus, they have begun trials in a real nursing home environment with real patients, at the Boston Home in Dorchester, a facility where all of the nearly 100 patients have partial or substantial loss of muscle control and use wheelchairs.

MIT 的鬼才再度來造福人類，這次推出的是可以載人到處趴趴走的電動輪椅，他最特別的地方，在於他可以記憶使用者曾經去過的特殊地點路徑，好比說病房、醫院餐廳之類的地方，往後只要使用者一聲令下，不論是在建築物中的任何地點，他都會自動往目的地開去。

簡單說，不同於一般的電動輪椅，還是需要使用者一個彎、一個直線來操作，這傢伙只要使用者曾經開著輪椅跑過環境、地點，都會被其配備的感應裝置，好比廣角度的攝影機、雷射測距設備等來辨識，配合內建的電腦來儲存、分析這些資訊；將來則是可以靠 GPS（室外）來確定自身的位置，若在室內則可以透過 WiFi 網路來定位，以利系統來判斷所在的位置，另外也還會替他安裝上防碰撞系統，以確保使用者的安全。（自動駕駛到一半睡著的話...）

號令的部份沒有明說，感覺應該是在出發當時語音紀錄一下該地點，其他目的地位置也應該是以語音來做標記，使用的日子久了以後，常去的地方就都可以有一個相對的語音、地理資料存在。(癮科技)

版主:快快量產ㄅ...這樣開高速公路就可以睡覺去了!!但...那會不會以後開卡車ㄉ工人要失業了!!哇~原來人類的失業來自"科技"