TL;DR: The Pentagon’s mad scientists have been cooking up a beast of an unmanned fight car, and it simply took a significant step ahead. DARPA lately put its 12-ton RACER Heavy Platform (RHP) autonomous tank by a contemporary spherical of testing out within the wild.
For these not within the know, DARPA has been engaged on self-driving army autos for 20 years now as a part of its RACER (Robotic Autonomy in Advanced Environments with Resiliency) program. The objective is to develop autonomous floor autos that may navigate off-road terrain with none human enter.
This latest section concerned letting the RHP unfastened on some legit US army coaching grounds in Texas. The video confirmed off rugged, obstacle-filled environments full of vegetation, waterways, ditches, and rocky outcrops. Precisely the form of hellish situations that might give a self-driving system a full-on meltdown.
However DARPA’s 20-foot-long unmanned behemoth appeared to deal with all of it with out breaking a sweat. The company stories the RHP knocked out 30 miles of autonomous route-following and cruised alongside at speeds of as much as 25 mph.
To make clear, the RHP testing, assisted by College of Washington and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, occurred late 2023 however has simply been introduced by DARPA.
One peculiar function that stood out within the video was the car’s glowing inexperienced eyes. They do add a contact of futurism that DARPA was probably making an attempt to go for but in addition seem a tad quirky at instances. Apparently, they serve a objective – a spokesperson for the company advised Gizmodo that “it is simply an indicator mild to point out the standing of the car. Inexperienced = it is on and in autonomy mode.”
Anyway, DARPA says that the 12-ton RACER is designed to assist different members of the RACER Fleet Autos (RFVs). However these different autos are extra like self-driving ATVs. In the meantime, this tank-scaled RHP takes autonomous capabilities to an entire new stage of professional quality.
DARPA intends to maintain iterating on RACER each 6 months or so, frequently ramping up the autonomous tech. The RHP relies on an current Textron fight car platform utilized by the Military.
In the end, the company appears to be aiming for unmanned fight autos that may roll into battle with out risking human lives. These might deal with harmful roles like scouting, resupplying, and even paving the best way with firepower earlier than troops transfer in. An AI-driven tank positively sounds terrifying. However it may simply supply a safer different to boots on the bottom.
In fact, we’re nonetheless years away from something like that changing into an precise deployable system. DARPA has been at this RACER rodeo since 2004 when it began with simply getting a self-driving automotive to navigate a easy 1-mile course. Now, 20 years later, it has an autonomous tank tearing throughout coaching grounds.
