Welcome to Hyundai’s latest ‘ultimate mobility vehicle,’ or UMV. The TIGER—short for ‘Transforming Intelligent Ground Excursion Robot,’ obviously—is the follow-up to 2019’s tremendous Elevate concept. Essentially, it’s an autonomous four-legged, four-wheeled robot designed to operate in the harshest environments.
Will not just drive
Developed by the company’s New Horizons Studio in California, the TIGER is for getting things to hard-to-reach places. It does this by walking—yes, walking—over terrain it’s just not possible to drive over.
Hyundai suggests that with its large, level load bay, the TIGER could be used to transport aid “in emergency situations,” act as a “mobile scientific exploration platform in extreme, remote locations,” or even “explore the surface of another moon or planet.” The platform is modular, meaning different bodies can be fitted to best suit the machine’s purpose, whatever that purpose may be.
Possible series of 'walking' cars
New Horizons Studio is the bit of Hyundai Motor Group tasked with creating UMVs. That’s right—the Korean company has a whole division dedicated to the development of, effectively, walking cars. For the TIGER, it has teamed up with software company Autodesk and “product innovation studio” Sundberg-Ferar.
No doubt Boston Dynamics, builder of those terrifying robot dogs recently acquired by Hyundai, will help with this kind of thing going forwards.
Thoughts?
NOTE: This article first appeared on TopGear.com. Minor edits have been made.
