Nissan has unveiled an autonomous robot dubbed Pitch-R, capable of drawing football pitches wherever there is enough room for it to do so. The Japanese automaker presented the robot at the UEFA Champions League Final in Kiev.
Inspired by the automaker’s ProPILOT driver assistance technology, Pitch-R features a four-camera vision system, GPS tracking and collision avoidance technology, allowing it to draw white lines on grass, tarmac or gravel using dissolvable paint.
As soon as the robot is powered up using a rechargeable battery pack, it can move on its own in order to analyze its surroundings in real time, scanning for a suitable place to draw a football pitch. It can even navigate around obstacles and draw on uneven surfaces.
According to Nissan, it can take less than 20 minutes for Pitch-R to draw pitches for either five-a-side, seven-a-side or a 11-a-side team game.
“The UEFA Champions League features the best footballers in the world,” stated Nissan corporate VP, Roel De Vries. “But all those star players started out like every kid – using jumpers for goalposts and chalk to mark lines wherever they could find open space to play the game they love.”
“That’s the passion which drove our design and engineering team to create Pitch-R. It injects the best of Nissan technology into an innovation which can benefit grassroots football, and excite and engage young fans,” added Nissan Europe marketing VP, Jean-Pierre Diernaz.
