Robotically Accessible Traffic Lights

Even those far from the pulse of tech news are surely aware that automated systems are making deeper and deeper forays into the world of automotive transportation, and Russian designer Evgeny Arinin realized that there are potential infrastructure issues that might impede this progress. Far from an engineering problem to impact the physical roads, Arinin created a new traffic light design that he hopes will make it easier for autonomous vehicles — i.e. robots — to read the rules of the road.

To be sure, traffic lights in their current iteration are an excellent system for humans. The design has been essentially unchanged since it was first introduced soon after the invention of the automobile, and it endures today. Evgeny Arinin's new design, however, uses brightly lit LED shapes that should be easier to see and understand for both robots and humans alike.