Meet Eporo, Nissan’s Family of Robots

Nissan has proven that they are no stranger to outstanding engineering with a leading edge on modern technology. We see Nissan manufacturing plants across the globe implementing elements to help prevent worker fatigue and injury using robotic and mechanical technology. Nissan has also put themselves on the forefront of powerful electric vehicles with their recently developed E-Force drivetrain system that will make its debut in 2022 with the Nissan Ariya. So, what else is on the horizon for Nissan? It looks as though the brand is beginning to release technology that allows vehicles to communicate with each other. With widespread inter-vehicle communication still far off, Nissan has begun this study with their new autonomous robot, Eporo. 

Eporo is a family of seven self-driving, autonomous robots. Each of the Eporo family are have colored heads, and the robot itself has a strong resemblance to a small, white chicken. Their stubby features and rounded all-around shape compliment their large “eyes” that makes them so cute they got their own manga series introduced by Nissan to help market this exciting new technology. 

Although the Eporo robots resemble a mechanical bird at first glance, they are programmed to behave like a school of fish as they flock together. With inspiration from large schooling fish groups such as sardines, engineers studied how these fish swim in tight formation with while avoiding obstacles and maintaining distance from each other. Fish recognize their surroundings both through eyesight and a lateral line sense. These are enabled by pores along their bodies that detect changes in movement, vibration, and pressure in the water as they move. 

In order to best mimic the behavior of schools of fish, engineers equipped Eporo with wide-band communication and laser range finders to send and receive communications between them. Using their communication systems, they exchange information regarding their location, speed, and orientation. These signals can also be used to calculate the distance between each robot, as well as detect obstacles. The result was a group of autonomous creations being able to travel safely through varying conditions while making decisions based on their surroundings. 

Each member of the Eporo family has been programmed individually to present a different sort of movement style. The group is lead by the unit named “Silver,” and is followed by six other robots that have a unique driving style including “Choco,” who has a tendency towards accelerating and overall impatience. 

Watching a set of seven robots moving together around curves while navigating obstacles has meant a lot for the future of Nissan. Eporo is playing a role in Nissan’s long-standing journey of developing a lineup of vehicles that can do their part in making road accidents and collisions a thing of the past. Nissan looks to their Nissan NEXT program to expand the number of vehicles that implement advanced driver assistance. By implementing the technology in their vehicles as demonstrated in Eporo, there is hope for a safer and smarter vehicle that can prevent congestion and accidents by communicating with each other.