Marscar all terrain flying car is a futuristic vehicle for one

Ever since Wright Brothers gave human aspirations wings to fly, there is a race to develop a flying car that could easily maneuver on road and take to the wings if need arises. In the past too, we have seen many concept flying cars that were impressive and some real world flying car models that could help one take to the wings with short flying as well as landing span to avoid the thick traffic during rush hours.

While the real road worthy flying Humvee from DARPA is yet to make debut in the real world, we are to introduce you with another spectacular flying car concept from Erik Heidt who is an industrial design major and sustainability minor Graduate from Clearwater FL. Christened as Marscar, it’s an all terrain flying car which is designed to be parked in most of the modern garages.

The design is intended to provide an average working man who wants a mean of transportation to eschew regular traffic jams on the city road and likes to explore off-road. With directional thruster turbines, off-road tank treads and capacity to carry one man, Marscar offers it all to a regular commuter to set a new paradigm in individual transportation.

Hitachi presents Ropits – Robot for Personal Intelligent Transport System in Japan

Hitachi presents Ropits – Robot for Personal Intelligent Transport System in Japan

Japanese company Hitachi reveals Ropits (short for Robot for Personal Intelligent Transport System) to pick up a person from point A and drop him on B autonomously. The move is considered as one step ahead to Jeremy Clarkson’s personally designed robotic car showed on the Top Gear’s recent episode. Clarkson’s P45 car was described as the world’s smallest at that time. However here is its challenger even before Jeremy could materialize his.

The Ropits– the one man mobility robot car was unveiled in the city of Tsukuba in the Ibaraki Prefecture. The robot car is capable of driving its occupant to destination without a hinge. In case of emergency; the rider can take the control of the car and can steer it to the destination using a joystick controller in the cockpit.

Robot for Personal Intelligent Transport System is created to help people who are somehow find it difficult to walk. The Robot car is small enough to move automatically or to be steered easily through the pedestrian spaces. What makes Ropits maneuver easily thought crowded pedestrian system is, of course, its small size and supporting it further in its movements is GPS that helps it find its way, laser distance sensors that look for obstacles ahead as well as a gyro sensor that keeps it upright on the bumpy lanes. On the top of this, it also has active suspension that not only controls each wheel individually to make its movements smooth on curves and uneven roads but also keeps passenger upright comfortably.

After getting in through a front hatch, all the passenger needs to do is to locate their destination on the touch-screen map and Ropits will drive them there automatically yet safely. Anyone from in the city of Tsukuba who is willing to have a ride can call for Ropits vehicle from any number of computer networked ‘stops’ dotted around the city.