Quacky races! Technology used in self-driving cars is being tested in toy taxis carrying rubber DUCKS around a tiny town

This experiment may look quackers, but it is an important step in teaching engineers of the future to train self-driving vehicles to navigate a town. Experts have created'Duckietown' - a miniature town with complex road junctions that's home to up to 50 taxis'driven' by rubber ducks. The self-driving duck taxis are fitted with cameras that allow them to read road signs and avoiding crashing into obstacles. Experts have created'Duckietown,' - a miniature town with complex road junctions that's home to up to 50 taxis'driven' by rubber ducks (pictured above) Duckietown is the brainchild of computer scientists at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (Csail) where students are taught about autonomous vehicle technologies using 50 duck-mobiles. As part of the class, students had to build a fleet of duckie-adorned robo-taxis that use a single camera to navigate. Unlike Google's experimental car, for example, the duck-mobiles do not rely on pre-programmed maps to find their way around a network of roads, instead navigating without any clues in real-time.