![]() “It’s just a very, very tough and chaotic environment,” Mills said. A path may be passable one moment and littered with obstacles a half hour later due to battle damage. Mills said autonomous ground systems face a series of challenges such as dust, fog and debris - as well as avoiding civilians and troops. “The ground domain is much, much tougher than the air domain because it’s so dynamic,” said Myron Mills, who has worked on both aerial and ground robotic systems and now manages an autonomous vehicle program for Maryland-headquartered Lockheed Martin Corp. The results, among other things, could be more saved lives, less wear and tear on the troops, and reduced fuel consumption.įull autonomy, engineers say, is still years away. Only now is robotics research nearing the stage that the military may soon be able to deploy large ground vehicles capable of performing tasks on their own with little human involvement. Of more than 6,000 robots deployed, about 750 have been destroyed in action, saving at least that many human lives, the Pentagon’s Robotics Systems Joint Program Office estimates. ![]() Ten years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq have put a spotlight on the growing use of unmanned systems in the skies over the battlefield, from the high-flying Global Hawk to the lethal Predator aircraft and the hand-launched Raven.īut on the ground, thousands of small, remotely operated robots also have proven their value in dealing with roadside bombs, a lethal threat to U.S. “We haven’t automated those yet,” he explained, referring to the windshield wipers, as the robotic truck reached the bottom of the hill and executed a perfect hairpin turn. Oshkosh Corp engineer Noah Zych, perched in the driver’s seat, kept his hands in his lap and away from the gyrating wheel as the vehicle reached the bottom of the slope and slammed into a puddle, coating the windshield in a blinding sheet of mud.Īs the truck growled up another rise and started back down again, Zych reached up and flicked a wiper switch to brush away the slurry, then put his hands back in his lap. Oshkosh Corporation engineer Noah Zych sits with his hands in his lap while the Terramax autonomous truck drives itself around a test course outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in this Mafile photo.
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