The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has demonstrated the extreme speed off-road ground autonomy of 12-ton vehicles as part of its Robotic Autonomy in Complex Environments with Resiliency, or RACER program.
DARPA said Tuesday the recent autonomous movement tests for the RACER Heavy Platform vehicles marked the second phase of the DARPA initiative and reflected the agency’s continued round of autonomy development and testing.
The heavy vehicles dubbed RHPs have the Textron M5 base platform, which was developed and utilized in U.S. Army robotic combat vehicle campaigns and was upfitted by Carnegie Robotics to support RACER autonomy integration hardware stacks and software.
The 20-foot-long, skid-steer tracked vehicles are expected to complement RACER Fleet Vehicles, or RFVs, which are the two-ton, 11-foot-long, Ackermann-steered, wheeled platforms already in use.
RACER Program Manager Stuart Young remarked, “Having two radically different types of vehicles helps us advance towards RACER’s goal of platform agnostic autonomy in complex, mission-relevant off-road environments that are significantly more unpredictable than on-road conditions.”
He added that there are higher goals for the off-road average autonomous speed and lower intervention rates during Phase 2 and that the two platforms enable RACER to demonstrate the adaptability and resilience of autonomous software in complex, military-relevant environments.
The University of Washington and Overland AI; and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Offroad Autonomy, Georgia Institute of Technology and Duality Robotics worked as RACER Phase 2 performer teams.