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Football fans have been using their imaginations to create pitches for decades, but Nissan’s latest piece of technology might be about to make their job a little more straightforward.
The Pitch-R is an autonomous robot which can draw five-a-side, seven-a-side or 11-a-side football pitches wherever there is space, with the ability to do so on uneven surfaces as well as to navigate obstacles.
The paint it uses is eco-friendly and dissolvable, and the robot itself runs on a rechargeable battery pack.
Pitch-R was unveiled at the Champions League final in Kiev, in which Real Madrid defeated Liverpool 3-1 to claim their third consecutive European crown.
The creation is inspired by Nissan’s advanced ProPILOT driver assistance technology. Pitch-R features a four-camera vision system, GPS location tracking and collision avoidance systems.
Nissan say the Pitch-R is “the first in a series of advanced prototypes being developed using Nissan Intelligent Mobility technologies”, and recommended that people should watch the 2018/19 Champions League for further developments.
“The UEFA Champions League features the best footballers in the world,” said Roel De Vries, Nissan’s corporate vice president for marketing and brand strategy. “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.”
Jean-Pierre Diernaz, Nissan Europe’s vice president for marketing, added: “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.”
