IT SOUNDS like a driver’s worst nightmare. Herds of traffic cones swarm onto a highway, closing down lanes and slowing the traffic. But it’s no bad dream.
The robotic road markers have been developed by Shane Farritor, a roboticist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, in a bid to help reduce the $100 billion per year that the Department of Transportation estimates is lost to the US economy through accidents and delays caused by highway lane closures.
The self-propelled markers take the form of robotic three-wheeled bases for the brightly coloured barrels that are set out to demarcate road repair zones.…
