MIT Students Developed a Self-Driving Golf Cart, Could Alleviate Congestion on Local Muni Courses

Students at the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology have built a self-driving golf cart. Its primary design is based on relieving traffic within actual streets of crowded urban areas, but who couldn’t use one of these out on the golf course?

"“We would like to use robot cars to make transportation available to everyone,” says Daniela Rus, the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Professor in MIT’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and a senior author on the conference paper. “The idea is, if you need a ride, you make a booking, maybe using your smartphone or maybe on the Internet, and the car just comes.”"

Just imagine walking up to your cart and getting in, being taken to the first tee where it stops and waits for you to tee off and then sit back in the seat before proceeding down the cart-path scanning for your ball. Hell, if the thing could help me find a few golf balls in the rough using its lasers and heat sensors (not sure how a golf ball shows up under a heat sensor), I’d be all for it. Throw in a setting that would make the foursome in front of you have to let you play through because you’re playing at twice their speed and it would be even better, but now I’m just dreaming.

It may also help those golfers who enjoy too many cold beverages while on the course drive in a straight line.

[HT GolfDigest]