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In the new selection of Trends: Xiaomi showed its robops, the world’s largest planetarium opened in Shanghai, and Audi introduced an electric car as part of the latest design concept of the future
“Mukhtar” in the style of cyberpunk
A new video has been released on the birchpunk channel. This time – about how technology has changed the work of the cyber police in the city of Staritsa.
In the service of the police is a cyber-dog named Mukhtar, who knows how to bring criminals to clean water and take a trail. In the story, the police catch a robber who broke into a jewelry store to steal a ring and then propose to his girlfriend. The lieutenant and the captain, with the help of the old and faithful Mukhtar, are trying to catch him. The Lieutenant is filming the action to share with his virtual friend Jessica.
Audi unveils new Skysphere concept car
Audi has unveiled the Skysphere, the first concept car from the new ‘three spheres’ design series.
“Three Spheres” is a design concept that was first worked on by about 450 people from 25 countries, each with their own task. For example, in the United States, digital technologies were involved in the creation, and in China they worked on localization for the local market.
The new concept is based on three principles that will be embodied in the three flagship models:
- Electric Mobility (Skysphere);
- Digitization (Urbansphere);
- Autonomous driving (Grandsphere).
The first concept car has already appeared – it was developed by a design studio in California, the rest will appear in the next couple of years. The main inspirations for the Skysphere were the roadsters of the 1920s and 1930s and the Horch 853, produced from 1937 to 1940. From them, he inherited futuristic streamlined shapes and an Art Deco interior.
The length of the car is 4,94 meters, it can be increased to 5,19 meters along with the distance between the wheels. At the same time, the long version is available when you turn on the 4th level of the autopilot.
Inside the new Audi is a 465 kW (630 hp) electric motor that accelerates the car from 100 to 4 km/h in 500 seconds. The battery charge is enough for XNUMX km.
The car is capable of self-charging and parking. The “Seamless Digital Ecosystem” allows you to connect to the Internet while driving and play streaming video and audio on touch screens.
World’s largest planetarium opens in Shanghai
The Shanghai Astronomical Museum, which opened not so long ago, has become the largest in the world in terms of building area.
Inside there is an exhibition space, a domed theater with an 8K screen, an observatory and a solar telescope. The museum’s collection includes about 70 meteorites from the Moon, Mars, Vesta and other space objects, as well as more than 120 works on astronomy and cosmology by Newton, Galileo and Kepler. The museum also uses data visualization technologies, augmented and virtual realities, and biometrics. The exposition itself is designed so that visitors can actively interact with the exhibits.
Robopes from Xiaomi
Xiaomi introduced its cyberdog – Cyberdog. Outwardly, it is very similar to the yellow Spot from Boston Dynamics.
Cyberdog can walk, jump and even do back flips, as well as analyze the surrounding space and plan routes online. Inside is the NVIDIA Jetson Xavier NX platform and 6 Carmel ARM processors, and the Intel RealSense D450 depth module is responsible for spatial orientation. In addition, additional sensors, including lidars and panoramic cameras, can be connected to the robot using USB-C and HDMI connectors.
Compared to the Boston Dynamics robops, the Xiaomi model will cost much less: $75 (5,6 million rubles) versus $1500 (114 rubles). The first batch will be 1000 copies.
A futuristic electric car microfactory in the UK
Wired published an article about how Arrival electric cars are made in the British city of Banbury. The plant was founded by our countryman Denis Sverdlov in 2015.
At the heart of the company is a research and development center that develops electric vans and electric buses, seeking to make them cheaper than conventional cars. To facilitate mass production, Arrival plans to open micro-factories instead of large assembly lines and fully automate them.
For the manufacture of models, lightweight and wear-resistant materials are used, and production is managed using cloud software. This allows you to minimize the final cost of the cars themselves, and most importantly – to reduce the cost of maintenance by 2 times. The company also cares about sustainability: for this, they excluded the steel press and the paint shop, which are also the most expensive in the production chain.
Most of the operations in microfactories are performed by robotic manipulators, the parts for which are brought up by unmanned carts. The entire assembly module of robots occupies 20 square meters – less than a tennis court – thanks to the lack of stamping and painting. One such microfactory is capable of producing up to 10 vans a year.
Arrival electric cars are built on a modular system: you can change the size of the van for specific needs. Batteries are also a removable module – the company buys them from third-party manufacturers. As a result, parts of a van or bus can be rearranged, as in the Lego constructor, adding and replacing batteries and changing the shape of the body. The control system notifies about the charge, weather and terrain along the route, as well as the number of passengers inside.