Combining legged mobility with wheels and drone delivery means TIGER can reach almost any location on earth.
Hyundai: New Horizons Studio
Hyundai’s New Horizons Studio wanted to create an unmanned compact modular vehicle that could reach the most extreme locations on earth. Through the process of developing the ELEVATE Ultimate Mobility Vehicle concept that opens the door for humans to access extreme locations, NHS and SF saw opportunities for a compact yet agile cargo transport and surveillance robot. The team needed to design this new vehicle from the ground up, utilize new 3D techniques to engineer a functional working prototype, and visualize the potential capabilities with high-end video animations.
Market
New Mobility
Autodesk joined the collaboration to help design and develop lightweight leg structures using carbon fiber reinforced 3D printed leg segments and chassis. T.I.G.E.R.’s extreme articulation capabilities demand high strength components while also being lightweight and thin so the segments can fold in on themselves to transition into drive mode.
During the development, the SF design and engineering team worked back and forth with Autodesk and NHS using generative CAD tools to optimize and iterate on the structures to meet the project goals.
Hyundai: New Horizons Studio T.I.G.E.R.
“There’s a tremendous amount of capability and technology available today, but it’s not necessarily all in one piece. We are starting a vehicle from scratch, which allows us to push from a holistic viewpoint.”
John Suh
VP, New Horizons Studio
Human Impact
With the assistance of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) drone to bring a fully charged robot to any location on earth, T.I.G.E.R. could get to the toughest-to-reach locations to deliver food or medical supplies or retrieve live imagery from places too dangerous for humans. Imagine a drone delivering T.I.G.E.R. loaded with a donor organ to a remote operating room. Or T.I.G.E.R. walking and rolling into a building where people are trapped without supplies during a disaster. T.I.G.E.R. could also survey locations not accessible to people where drone access is not allowed or aerial space not available. The combination of T.I.G.E.R. and a UAV is extremely powerful to help people deliver or retrieve items or information from almost anywhere.
Business Impact
T.I.G.E.R. pushes the limit of advanced mechanical design, developing the control software and then connecting it to the structural design.
This requires a multi-disciplinary approach and an interconnection that will drive innovation in multiple categories for New Horizons Studio and Hyundai Global as they continue to deliver new mobility solutions to the world.