Volvo's new robot may be more rollercoaster than Optimus Prime, but we still like to believe that when robots finally achieve consciousness, instead of taking over the world, they'll just help cars be safer.
When a car goes off road, it is subjected to very different forces than if it is in a collision on-road. Your car will be jostled over uneven terrain, and may flip. In order to test safety measures, Volvo would normally crash a car.
When you need to destroy a car in order to test something, though, you can be a little conservative. You want to be really certain it will work before you wreck a $30,000 machine. It's good to be certain, but this can hamper innovation and experimentation.
So Volvo made a robot. It's based on an amusement park ride, and it simulates the speeds and movements of a car going off road. Innovation can happen faster, safety engineers can take risks and be creative in the solutions they want to test, and ultimately-- they can make safer cars.
Thank you, robots.
Look for innovative safety solutions when you test drive a new vehicle at Pedersen Volvo.