How do you decide whether a pedestrian needs to wait or it’s safe to cross the road in front of a car? In today’s world, drivers and pedestrians simply exchange a brief eye contact or small hand gestures to express their intentions to one another. But how will future autonomous cars communicate? Researchers involved in the MaMeK project are seeking to answer this question. They will present their findings at the LASER World of PHOTONICS trade fair in Munich from June 27 to 30 (Booth 415, Hall A2).

Imagine a situation in which a cyclist isn’t sure whether an approaching car giving him way or not—but then a bright projection appears in front of the vehicle, indicating that it has detected the bike and is waiting for it. This is one example of how cars and humans might communicate with one another on the streets of the future.

Together with his team at the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Optics and Precision Engineering IOF in Jena, Norbert Danz is looking at scenarios of this kind within the MaMeK joint project, which is focusing on projection systems for human-machine communication and involves partners including Audi AG. Two technological approaches are being pursued as part of this: displays shown directly on the car itself and holographic projections on the ground surrounding the vehicle. Fraunhofer IOF is responsible for the technology on which the latter of these cases is based.

Robots are nothing new. They build our cars, vacuum our floors, prepare our e-commerce orders, and even help carry out surgeries. But now the sci-fi vision of a general-purpose humanoid robot seems to be edging closer.

While disembodied artificial intelligence has seen rapid improvements in performance in recent years, most robots are still relatively dumb. For the most part, they are used for highly specialized purposes, the environments they operate in are carefully controlled, and they are not particularly autonomous.

That’s because operating in the messy uncertainty of the real world remains difficult for current AI approaches. As impressive as the recent feats of large language models have been, they are dealing with a fairly limited palette of data types that are fed to them in predictable ways.

Take an exclusive ride in the vehicle with no steering wheel that’s aiming to make car ownership a thing of the past.

Car wrapping services have been around for quite a while. Startups are diving into robot wrapping as a viable form of outdoor advertising. One recent instance is my company’s partnership with Serve Robotics to increase wildfire prevention.

Considering the recent growth in global outdoor advertising and the rising cost of online ads, there’s a growing possibility of autonomous robot controllers integrating with the outdoor advertising market. Also, as Alphabet rolls out Waymo in cities, the opportunity glares at advertising agencies looking to maximize their brand reach.

Advertising with AMRs is similar to other outdoor advertising campaigns. However, you might want to pay a little more attention to mobility, especially if you intend to use road-plying service robots.