An autonomous vehicle is able to navigate city streets and other less-busy environments by recognizing pedestrians, other vehicles and potential obstacles through artificial intelligence. This is achieved with the help of artificial neural networks, which are trained to “see” the car’s surroundings, mimicking the human visual perception system.

But unlike humans, cars using artificial neural networks have no memory of the past and are in a constant state of seeing the world for the first time—no matter how many times they’ve driven down a particular road before. This is particularly problematic in adverse weather conditions, when the car cannot safely rely on its sensors.

Researchers at the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science and the College of Engineering have produced three concurrent research papers with the goal of overcoming this limitation by providing the car with the ability to create “memories” of previous experiences and use them in future navigation.

Science and technology have advanced incredibly in the 21st Century. It’s easier now than ever to travel to or talk to people who live halfway across the world, and we now are more connected to advanced technology than anyone could have thought possible. Science fiction, in the 20th and 21st Centuries, has strived to anticipate just how far this technological advancement would go, and what the consequences of that would be.

Of course, a lot of old sci-fi movies included tropes about the 21st Century that proved to be wrong. Indeed, it was probably too optimistic, in hindsight, to assume we would get flying cars before the end of the 90s or that the 2000s would have lifelike androids running around. Despite these incorrect predictions, though, there are some movies that were eerily accurate, or even predicted we would have technology later than we eventually got access to. In some cases, sci-fi has even been the inspiration for invention, with people wanting to emulate what they saw on television. These are some predictions, made by older sci-fi movies, that turned out to be on the money.

Charging technology provider EV Safe Charge has unveiled ZiGGY – a mobile robot that can charge an EV wherever it’s parked. Through its ability to recharge itself via different energy sources and its summoning feature, ZiGGY can alleviate the need to install specific parking stalls for EV charging, as any spot can now become a spot to recharge.

EV Safe Charge currently provides end-to-end charging solutions, particularly as it pertains to mobile charging. The company created a mobile rental charging solution for the launch of Jaguar’s I-PACE EV and works with several other OEMs like Audi, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Porsche, and Stellantis.

Previously, EV Safe Charge has helped find its clients ideal charging solutions based on their needs, recommending charging technology from a multitude of partners including ABB, Enel X, evconnect, and Bosch.