Google may be hard at work trying to bring self-driving vehicles to public roads, but it's the government that is eagerly pushing for unmanned vehicles to rumble across the ground. The military has been working with unmanned vehicles for many year now. Drones take to the skies to handle a variety of tasks. Still, there's a need for ground-based vehicles to venture into the unmanned arena as the benefits could massive, with human risk dropping significantly when a machine takes over the task.
The Autonomous Mobility Appliqué System is a technology unit that allows large vehicles to enter a variety of situations with no one behind the actual wheel. The U.S. Army Tank-Automotive Research, Development, and Engineering Center has teamed up with Lockheed Martin to develop fully autonomous vehicles. Shown operating on a variety of vehicle types, the heavy rollers are able to operate together in a convoy and assess the changing conditions around them.
Be it a field or a tight urban environment, the vehicles recognize the world around them and operate appropriately. Additionally, the vehicles can sense when an object passes in front of them, whether the road has obstacles upon it, and can also react to changing traffic situations. It's a major step forward in the development of heavy-duty autonomous vehicles, and it could represent a world where fewer soldiers are placed at risk. Be it missile strikes or IEDs laid on the side of the road, a driverless truck taking the hit is a win compared to one operated by humans.