Toyota wants to revolutionise the Olympics with these mini AI robocars

With the world watching on, Toyota is hoping commentators and spectators alike get a kick out of watching its tiny autonomous robocars bouncing around the track and field events, like excitable Border Collies.

The 2020 Tokyo Olympics are tipped to be the most high-tech games yet, and Toyota is going gangbusters designing various robots and indeed this cute robocar to help officials and spectators along the way.

We recently toured the Toyota Research Institute, Advanced Development (TRI-AD) in Tokyo to see the robocar in action. Convincing the IOC this would help organisers is cheeky (but clever) advertising from Toyota.

Weighing roughly 50kg and measuring around a metre long, the compact AI-controlled cars need no operator and have been designed as a 'helper' in events such as javelin, discus and hammer toss.

So how do they work?

Leveraging technology first used by autonomous equipment carrying pods in its car factories, the small autonomous Toyota vehicle 'locks on' to a human and follows them at a distance of three metres. Using artificial intelligence (AI) to stay locked on to one (human) target, the zippy electric cars feature advanced collision detection to avoid bumping into things or getting stuck.

Once a discus, hammer or javelin is loaded into the dinky machine, the official just hits a button on the robocar's sensor 'head' and it returns to base quicker than most people can run.

Expect one or two to get snagged, creating caption hilarity for social media.

The idea behind these robocars, says Toyota, is to reduce the physical burden on staff. Equipment collection can be tiresome for staff and volunteers, and the thrown object in these events can be heavy, with hammers weighing 8kg each.

Toyota expects turnaround time in events will be reduced as well, despite IOC guidelines limiting the machines to a top speed of 20km/h. They can operate in all weather conditions, including rain, and have rudimentary suspension to deal with grassy surfaces.

The battery pack lasts around two hours and battery swaps will be used to minimise downtime.

That Toyota's robocars don’t need an operator is pretty nifty and seeing them in action in a small test range at TRI:AD was pretty cool. Their sensory systems look very military in operation, identifying humans and objects by wrapping them with square target reticles.

The little red eyes that the robocars have 'follow' the target they've locked on to and it's a bit ominous to be honest, but the technology has been through several trials and appears to be very effective.

The boffins behind the tech say the robocars are not designed for street use and may get lost with too many targets – excuse us – humans around, but the evolution of the AI tech will be fed back into car factory robots, impressive their effectiveness.

One day we may see these robocars scurrying around offices and even on streets, delivering coffees, transporting documents and probably assisting in idiotic pranks too.

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