Hyundai’s ‘TIGER’ concept is a four-legged autonomous robot thing

Welcome to Hyundai’s latest “ultimate mobility vehicle”, or UMV. The TIGER – short for “Transforming Intelligent Ground Excursion Robot”, obviously – is the follow-up to 2019’s tremendous Elevate concept. Essentially, it’s an autonomous four-legged, four-wheeled robot designed to operate in the harshest environments.

Developed by the company’s ‘New Horizons Studio’ division in California, the TIGER is for getting things to hard-to-reach places. It does this by walking – yes, walking – over terrain it’s just not possible to drive over. Hyundai suggests that with its large, level load-bay, the TIGER could be used to transport aid “in emergency situations”, act as a “mobile scientific exploration platform in extreme, remote locations” or even “explore the surface of another moon or planet”. The platform is modular, meaning different bodies can be fitted to best suit the machine’s purpose, whatever that purpose may be.

New Horizons Studio is the bit of Hyundai Motor Group tasked with creating UMVs. That’s right – Hyundai has a whole division dedicated to the development of, effectively, walking cars. For the TIGER, it teamed-up with software company Autodesk and “product innovation studio” Sundberg-Ferar. No doubt Boston Dynamics, builder of those terrifying robot dogs recently acquired by Hyundai, will help with this kind of thing going forwards.