This is PAMELA, or the reconfigurable robotic Pedestrian Accessibility and Movement Environment Laboratory. If you volunteer to be a human guinea pig, you will be subjected to a sort of urban nightmare: headache-inducing lighting; steep inclines to raise heart rates and test the patience of wheelchair users; wet surfaces, gaps and bumps to trip and bruise you; and other people.

But such experiments may result in safer streets and more user-friendly public spaces.



(Thanks, Geoff!)