Automotive Engineering - February 2022 - 9

CES 2022
TECHNOLOGY REPORT
used in nursing homes, which will be a
growing - and lucrative - market as the
aging population grows.
Perhaps the most immediate application
and payoff of the technology will
be for industrial applications. For example,
a team of engineers in the U.S.
could be virtually onsite at a factory in
Korea - or anywhere in the word - to
evaluate a design or diagnose an issue.
By setting up a metauniverse, people
will be able to move freely between the
physical and virtual worlds, according
to Chang Song, president and head of
Hyundai's transportation-as-a-service
division. " Time and place become irrelevant, "
he said, " and we'll be able to
move people and resources in a whole
new way, expanding human reach. "
Hyundai's Personal Mobility concept is intended to provide mobility for a single passenger, uses
rotary doors to save space and operates via a joystick.
and Lift (DnL) modular mobility system
that, like PnD, integrates drive, steering
and braking systems into a single module,
but with a rotating arm that allows
each wheel to articulate and lift independently.
This allows for mobility on uneven
terrain while keeping a load level or
even the ability to climb small steps. One
application for DnL Hyundai showed at
CES is MobED, a bot with a 2-kWh battery
and a tabletlike screen on an articulating
arm that could be used as a robotic
tour guide or assistant.
Time and place irrelevant
While Hyundai's " Mobility of Things "
vision sounds like something out of science
fiction - and perhaps CES " vaporware "
- the underlying technology has
immediate real-world applications when
tied together with virtual reality and
AUTOMOTIVE ENGINEERING
digital-twin tech. (During Hyundai's CES
press conference, Boston Dynamics
founder and chairman Marc Raibert
came up with a prefect analogy to explain
the concept of a digital twin: a
car's in-dash navigation system that
displays a digital version of the real
world outside.)
For example, using a robot with
Hyundai's PnD platform and leveraging
virtual reality and digital-twin technology,
a person could access their home
from halfway around the globe to check
in and interact with family members or
care and feed a pet.
Raibert also gave the example of a
robot being able to assist an elderly
person in getting dressed, rather than
placing the burden on family members
or paying for in-home human care. He
added that such robots could also be
Real application coming soon
Beyond the PnD-based forward-looking
mobility concepts Hyundai showed at
CES, company executives who spoke
were less clear about how the new
technology will be used in the company's
bread-and-butter vehicle-manufacturing
and sales business. Song mentioned
that the technology eventually
will be applied to Hyundai " cars, robots
and UAVs, " the unmanned aerial vehicles
that the company is developing
and plans to deploy through its
Supernal division.
Raibert was candid when he mentioned
in the CES press briefing that
" it's still a question on how to integrate
the technology with automotive and
we're tasked with figuring it out. " But
he added that industrial duties can be
done more efficiently using PnD and
related technologies. " It will be much
more applicable in manufacturing, " he
said. " That's almost a no-brainer. "
Hyundai Motor Group chairman
Euisun Chung said during the CES press
conference that he sees metamobility
as a " natural extension of our mobility
services " .
Song added that while the PnD technology
is conceptual at this point,
Hyundai is " thinking about mass production
and we'll show the real application
soon. "
Doug Newcomb
February 2022 9
HYUNDAI

Automotive Engineering - February 2022

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