I REMEMBER ASKING way back when we would be allowed to simply “Pay at the pump” with our credit card and a few years later, it was there.
Then I keep asking why I cannot just park my car beside the pump and have a robotic arm plug into a redesigned and industry-standard gas intake and fill up without having to step out into the freezing cold or dirtying my hands. A credit card reader pressed right against the driver’s side window will read my credit card and allow me to specify the type of gas and how much I want, plus also purchase any other merchandise to pick up from the drive thru.
Well, the enterprising Dutch unveiled a 75,000 euro ($111,100) car-fuelling robot (”Tankpitstop” — they’ve got to rethink the name) that matches your car to a database of fuel cap designs, extends a robotic arm fitted with multiple sensors, opens the gas intake flap, unscrews the cap, picks up the fuel nozzle and insert it into the tank opening.
All of this would be redundant it the automotive industry standardizes their fuel intake.
Can this be done?
“I was on a farm and I saw a robotic arm milking a cow. If a robot can do that then why can’t it fill a car tank, I thought,” said the developer and petrol station operator Nico van Staveren. “Drivers needn’t get dirty hands or smell of petrol again.”
So, a cow being milked by a robotic arm was the inspiration. Surely, we have higher aspirations than that, like preventing spills to help the environment, etc.
Reference: Yahoo!
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