The drive to get practical self-driving vehicle technology on the road for general use has been hotter than ever.
Sure, the technology exists, but continuing concerns about safety and reliability have prevented the technology’s proliferation to the general public.
While most people think of Tesla when it comes to self-driving and autonomous technology, other carmakers are also investing a lot of effort to develop their own versions. One of these manufacturers is Nissan and the company seems to have found another possible market for their self-driving technology: the golf course, specifically, on golf balls.
Watch the self-driving golf ball below.
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Video credit: Rumble
According to Nissan, they’ve managed to adapt a portion of its ProPilot 2.0 driver-assist system for use in golf balls. The ProPilot 2.0 is about to be released in September in Japan but the technology has already found another use, unlikely an area as it may seem.
Just like its vehicular counterpart, the autonomous golf ball “supports golfers by following a predefined route to its goal.” The company even released a YouTube video that featured a 4-year-old boy being able to consistently and accurately sink lengthy putts thanks to the ProPILOT golf ball that hones in on hole like a bloodhound.
The system works by having a drone hovering above. The drone charts the position of the cup relative to the golfer.
Once the ball is hit, the internal monitoring system devises a route towards the hole and corrects its trajectory. Apart from the miniature sensors, Nissan says that the ProPILOT golf ball also comes with a tiny electric motor to keep it in motion.
In an obvious challenge to Tesla’s Autopilot, Nissan’s latest ProPILOT system for cars makes “on-ramp to off-ramp” hands-free driving possible on the highway.
All the driver needs to do is enter a preset destination. According to Nissan, their system is the first “in the world to combine this with hands-off driving capability while cruising in a single lane,” and it will come with its Skyline model although only in Japan for now.
With the golf balls, it’s not the first time Nissan has tinkered with other applications of their self-driving technology. The company has already previously demonstrated self-parking chairs and slippers that tuck themselves away autonomously.
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