Original cardboard box for Duckiebot differential drive wheeled autonomous robot
Original cardboard box for Duckiebot differential drive wheeled autonomous robot, with DB18 configuration, part of Duckiebot Kit made by Frazzoli Laboratory, ETH Zurich, Switzerland, used for educational and demonstrative purposes in classes as part of the Duckietown Project, 2018-2019.
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This autonomous ‘Duckiebot’ robot is part of the interdisciplinary ‘Duckietown’ project that aims to make research into robotics, AI sand self-driving technologies accessible, tangible, and fun. The project uses miniature Duckietown cities to explore the real-world challenges of developing autonomous vehicles that use artificial intelligence to guide themselves.
In Duckietowns, Duckiebots operate as autonomous taxis that provide transportation to rubber duck citizens. Duckiebots, like this DB18 model, are low-cost mobile robots that are built almost entirely from off-the-shelf parts. Equipped with a small camera and onboard Raspberry Pi computer, they navigate through cities like self-driving cars would – stopping at intersections, yielding the right of way, and bracing when they encounter traffic. Duckietowns consist of roads and signage and can be transformed into smart cities by adding traffic lights and watchtowers.
The Duckietown project originated from a graduate class at MIT in Massachusetts in 2016 and has since developed into a huge open-source learning platform used by students and researchers world-wide. In 2012, its free massive online open course (MOOC) called ‘Self-driving cars with Duckietown' was attended by 7000 learners from over 170 countries. The project’s aim is to break preconceptions of what robotics is, share knowledge and make the development of future AI and self-driving car technologies accessible to a wide range of people.
Autonomous vehicles that use artificial intelligence to guide themselves are one of the most transformative emerging technologies of the 21st century. Their development and questions around how they might impact our mobility, cities, and societies of the future are an important field of contemporary research. While Duckietown is a simplified environment that is not as complex as the real world, it is still advanced enough to explore real world challenges and help find answers to these questions.