The Army is working hard to take the people out of vulnerable supply convoys. The service took a baby step towards robotic convoys this month when it tested the so-called Convoy Active Safety Technologies at Fort A.P. Hill in Virginia. This robotic autopilot — steered by a combination of radar, laser scanners and GPS — might one day bump human drivers off the road entirely.
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[...] Related: Robot convoy, ho! Robot race: pit stop Robot race: Oshkosh crash Robot race: anything can happen Robo-legs kick butt Firms fight over robot fighters No Comments so far Leave a comment RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI Leave a comment Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong> [...]
When I read the headline “Robot Ho”, I pictured something completely different.
[...] At their concession ceremony, Oshkosh vowed to keep working on TerraMax, and today we’re beginning to see the results. Unmanned Systems reports that Oshkosh has fitted TerraMax with the U.S. Army’s Convoy Active Safety Technology. CAST is actually derived from an Urban Challenge contender, built by Perceptek, that failed to make the cut for the final race. It adds cheap, reliable sensors, a simple data-link and servos to existing trucks, so that the trucks will just follow each other along the road, rather than needing constant human direction. At an October 2007 test in Virginia, two drivers in CAST-equipped trucks took turns following each other, letting CAST do most of the driving. I was there, watching in a curious mix of terror and glee as the driver of my truck took his hands off the wheel … and the wheel kept turning back and forth. (See video below.) [...]
This isn’t really news! This was the stated purpose of the DARPA’s challenges, the desert and urban challenge. DOD stated that they wanted something like 80% of resupply convoys to be unmanned. Robots by definition will always assigned the 3 D’s (dull, dumb, dangerous) and convoy work certainly qualifies as that! Eventually the control systems will be small enough and light enough to enable the same size vehicle to carry more cargo because there won’t be the need for ‘life support’(cab, controls, glass, armor, etc.) As for Oshkosh I thought is was very smart of them to use the vehicle they were already building for the Marines (suitably modified for maneuvering of course). They perceived that any experience they gained using their own vehicle (everyone else used cars or SUVs) would benefit them (as it indeed has)when it came time to build the convoy vehicles).
Please note that I do not work for DARPA, Oshkosh, or indeed anyone right now. I have followed DARPA’s challenges with interest to see what smart people would do when confronted by a task that was seemingly simple but had never been tried before.
Foo
Cool stuff to read about. Look forward to updated posts.
[...] Ein selbst fahrender LKW soll Soldaten die Möglichkeit geben sich nach Angreifern, IEDs und weiteren Gefahrenquellen um zuschauen. Dabei nutzt er moderne Sensoren und GPS. (Mehr Infos) [...]
[...] Technology International about an add-on vehicle-automation system called CAST (“Convoy Active Safety Technology“). Developed by Lockheed Martin for the Army on a $5.3 million contract, CAST [...]