Holonomic Cars

Have you seen CMU's Palm Pilot Robot? If you haven't, check out the first link below.

A very cool thing about it is it's holonomic drive system. Being able to move holonomically means "it may move in any direction while simultaneously controlling rotational speed." (For a fuller explanation, see the second link.)

If we scale it up to a car, this means you'll be able to drive in any direction, rotate in place, or even rotate while moving down the road. No backing and filling into tight parking spots-- just slip sideways into it. Drive straight into your garage, then rotate in place so you can drive straight out again instead of backing out. "Turn radius" will be a thing of the past-- you can do a U-turn in any amount of space!

One downside is that I don't imagine holonomic wheels would be very good at highway speeds-- but I could be wrong. If that's the case, then holonomic cars could be city drivers (and as such, be electric) while you use your old non-holo car for long distance treks.

The controls will have to change as well-- the steering wheel could control rotation (in which case it would spin freely, instead of turning three times lock-to-lock), and a joystick could control direction. They would also be linked so that your car would automatically turn to face the direction you were travelling unless you overrode it, and vice-versa. Turn signals will be more complicated, but since so few people signal anyway it shouldn't be a problem.

Three wheels good, four wheels bad!