Tesla Is Working on Robotic Snakes That Emerge from the Wall to Charge Your Car • Hacker News Board

Re: Tesla Is Working on Robotic Snakes That Emerge from the Wall to Charge Your Car

#11

Post by ceejayoz » Wed, Dec 31, 2014, 3:40 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #8

prawn wrote: post #2

Someone could do this for regular laptop hookups eventually . e.g. Every morning at the office, I connect a power cable, monitor cables and a mouse.

They have been around for 20+ years. It's called a laptop Base station / Docking station. There on a fairly wide range of buissness laptops sadly that's one of the ports that Apple does not seem to support. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Docking_station

> There on a fairly wide range of buissness laptops sadly that's one of the ports that Apple does not seem to support.

I don't think it's any sort of standard - the ones I've seen look specific to individual laptop models - and there are docks for Apple. http://hengedocks.com/

Re: Tesla Is Working on Robotic Snakes That Emerge from the Wall to Charge Your Car

#12

Post by melling » Wed, Dec 31, 2014, 3:43 PM UTC

JoshTriplett wrote: post #3

prawn wrote: post #2

Someone could do this for regular laptop hookups eventually . e.g. Every morning at the office, I connect a power cable, monitor cables and a mouse.

> power cable, monitor cables and a mouse Won't be too long before you can do all three of those with one USB-C cable.

And they finally made a small reversible connector.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8518/hands-on-with-usb-type-c-...

Re: Tesla Is Working on Robotic Snakes That Emerge from the Wall to Charge Your Car

#13

Post by icegreentea » Wed, Dec 31, 2014, 3:45 PM UTC

revscat wrote: post #9

Is there any existing tech that even approaches this? Tesla cars are an evolution and improvement upon tech that previously existed. Ditto Space X. But I'm not aware of anything that even approaches Doc Ock-like articulating cables/hoses that are able to overcome the force of gravity.

This is fundamentally a robotics problem. Typical issues with robotics have to do with sensing, power supply, and actuators (the last two being pretty well coupled). This particular application makes the first two issues make easier - it is a fixed application where installing extra sensors isn't too much of a big deal, and also interacts with a more or less predictable object. Power supply... ya, this thing is plugged into a wall, not an issue. Actuator-wise is just a question of price.

Something that helps to make this seem less 'high-tech' is to imagine not a flexible cable or hose that articulates, but rather a large series of rigid connectors between articulation joints. CMU has a biorobotics lab that is particularly fond of snake bots (http://biorobotics.ri.cmu.edu/projects/modsnake/).

Re: Tesla Is Working on Robotic Snakes That Emerge from the Wall to Charge Your Car

#14

Post by ep103 » Wed, Dec 31, 2014, 3:46 PM UTC

revscat wrote: post #9

Is there any existing tech that even approaches this? Tesla cars are an evolution and improvement upon tech that previously existed. Ditto Space X. But I'm not aware of anything that even approaches Doc Ock-like articulating cables/hoses that are able to overcome the force of gravity.

Snake arm projects have been around for many, many years. No idea what the state of their research / applications are though.

Re: Tesla Is Working on Robotic Snakes That Emerge from the Wall to Charge Your Car

#15

Post by ape4 » Wed, Dec 31, 2014, 3:46 PM UTC

Cool, but its not exactly taxing to get out of the car to plug it in.

Re: Tesla Is Working on Robotic Snakes That Emerge from the Wall to Charge Your Car

#16

Post by courtewing » Wed, Dec 31, 2014, 3:48 PM UTC

ape4 wrote: post #15

Cool, but its not exactly taxing to get out of the car to plug it in.

Luxury cars have a lot of features that exist purely for convenience, like this one.

Re: Tesla Is Working on Robotic Snakes That Emerge from the Wall to Charge Your Car

#17

Post by acd » Wed, Dec 31, 2014, 3:49 PM UTC

This seems way to complicated why not just have a device under your car that injects the power socket. Like for example park the front wheels on a platter that by the weight of the car injects the socket.

Re: Tesla Is Working on Robotic Snakes That Emerge from the Wall to Charge Your Car

#18

Post by rjv » Wed, Dec 31, 2014, 3:49 PM UTC

ape4 wrote: post #15

Cool, but its not exactly taxing to get out of the car to plug it in.

When the vehicle is autonomously parking itself is where this really comes into play.

Re: Tesla Is Working on Robotic Snakes That Emerge from the Wall to Charge Your Car

#19

Post by teslacarsgobang » Wed, Dec 31, 2014, 3:54 PM UTC

What could go wrong? Maybe...

"Well you see officer, I stepped outside the car to see where the robotic charging cable was"

Officer: "that doesn't explain why your trousers were down and you had a power socket tag near your backside".

Re: Tesla Is Working on Robotic Snakes That Emerge from the Wall to Charge Your Car

#20

Post by gfodor » Wed, Dec 31, 2014, 3:59 PM UTC

acd wrote: post #17

This seems way to complicated why not just have a device under your car that injects the power socket. Like for example park the front wheels on a platter that by the weight of the car injects the socket.

How is this less complicated? In your case you'd need to install something non-standard connected to high voltage power in the floor of your garage and then have to carefully park your car every time. It'd be expensive and tricky to install, and impose a mental burden every single time you park your car. Not to mention that it would have moving parts that are often put under strain (particularly in those instances where you don't park correctly) and it would be prone to damage and wear.

I believe the idea here is that this robotic snake idea should have zero impact on the user, and zero impact on installation, it should be a swap out replacement for the current charger. The only difference being that the user no longer has to plug it in manually. It may be a complex engineering problem but it's a simple, elegant design solution.