I never thought I’d see the day when a video game device could pilot an automobile, but that day is here. Ok, maybe not a full sized car, but Michael Schweitzer and Michael Himmelsbach have programmed a Kinect to guide a small, robot-like car, apparently a 1:10 VW Touareg. KinectHacks.net provides the technical explanation for how this works.
"A planar inverse depth model of the ground surface is verified against the depth images provided by the Kinect sensor to build an occupancy grid of the robot’s environment. The path the robot takes is then determined by a reactive navigation approach called ‘tentacles’."
Be sure to watch the video too.
[flash width="540" height="328"]http:/www.youtube.com/v/NmnepqAQIlk?fs=1&hl=en_US&hd=1&color1=0xe1600f&color2=0xfebd01[/flash]
The future? Psh, it’s not nearly as cool as the present.
