TL;DR: The Pentagon’s mad scientists have been cooking up a beast of an unmanned fight car, and it simply took a serious step ahead. DARPA lately put its 12-ton RACER Heavy Platform (RHP) autonomous tank by means of a recent spherical of testing out within the wild.
For these not within the know, DARPA has been engaged on self-driving navy autos for 20 years now as a part of its RACER (Robotic Autonomy in Complex Environments with Resiliency) program. The aim is to develop autonomous floor autos that may navigate off-road terrain with none human enter.
This latest part concerned letting the RHP unfastened on some legit US navy coaching grounds in Texas. The video confirmed off rugged, obstacle-filled environments packed with vegetation, waterways, ditches, and rocky outcrops. Exactly the form of hellish situations that would give a self-driving system a full-on meltdown.
But DARPA’s 20-foot-long unmanned behemoth appeared to deal with all of it with out breaking a sweat. The company studies 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 University 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 green eyes. They do add a contact of futurism that DARPA was doubtless making an attempt to go for but in addition seem a tad quirky at occasions. Apparently, they serve a function – a spokesperson for the company informed Gizmodo that “it is simply an indicator mild to indicate the standing of the car. Green = it is on and in autonomy mode.”
Anyway, DARPA says that the 12-ton RACER is designed to help different members of the RACER Fleet Vehicles (RFVs). But these different autos are extra like self-driving ATVs. Meanwhile, this tank-scaled RHP takes autonomous capabilities to a complete new degree of industrial 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 Army.
Ultimately, the company appears to be aiming for unmanned fight autos that may roll into battle with out risking human lives. These may 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. But it’d simply provide a safer different to boots on the bottom.
Of course, we’re nonetheless years away from something like that turning 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.