If you’ve been wondering when the official “future” might finally arrive, you’ll be happy to know that Volvo has just made it happen. The automaker’s trucking arm has joined forces with waste management company Renova to develop garbage-hauling robots.
These new bots have been best described as similar to the droids found in Star Wars. They will be programmed to collect garbage cans like regular trash collectors do now, saving human workers the physical stress of the job. And don’t worry, neither Renova nor Volvo are looking to replace human workers; former collectors will now be in the front of the trucks operating the robots.
To help get the project off the ground both companies have partnered with universities around the world, including Penn State, where students have been given a terrific opportunity to work with advanced robotics.
The head of the Penn State team, Sean Brennan says the project “promises great opportunities for our students to not only engage with a cutting-edge vehicle project, but also to help define how society will interact daily with robotic systems.”
There’s no word yet on when this new technology will finally debut on our neighborhood streets, but the automaker is hoping to unveil a prototype of the technology sometime in 2016.
