Except they are not coming to our planet from Cybertron; instead they are being made by humans in Japan. Shunji Yamanaka from the University of Tokyo and Takayuki Furuta of the Future Robotics Technology Center (fuRo) at Chiba Institute of Technology have just unveiled their latest creation; a three-wheeler autonomous assistant slash self-driving vehicle. CanguRo performs two main functions. In his ”robot mode” he can follow you around and be basically your porter, carrying stuff for you. If you feel like walking is out of style and want to ride, he can transform into a ”bike” mode that will allow you to drive it at a speed of ten kilometers per hour. Both autonomous and manual control are available. Autonomous drive is accomplished by CanguRo using mapping, positioning data and image recognition technology. Smart-stop feature will allow the driver to avoid accidents while driving manually. Fancy video depicting CanguRo in action can be watched here.
Hold your horses, though. CanguRo is still being developed. Its creators are currently working on giving it speech capabilities. Looks like we have a friendly little robotic helper coming out in the near future. Transformers, more than meets the eye…