When you talk about self-driving car, the first thing you picture in your mind is Google’s self-driving car, but that’s just short-sighted. On the contrary, whenever in movies or games, we watch a car being driven without a driver, it makes us wonder how far is the time when we see that in real?
The U.S. Army Tank-Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC) and Lockheed Martin successfully completed the demonstration of the first ever fully autonomous convoys of armored vehicles in Fort Hood, Texas. The demonstration is part of the Army and Marine Corps’ Autonomous Mobility Appliqué System (AMAS) program, where it marks the completion of Capabilities Advancement Demonstration (CAD).
The test is done to put the soldiers driving the truck completely out of need and it includes vehicles of different models which are made to follow a route compatible with both Rural and Urban environments.
The vehicles can overcome any sort of obstacle a human driven vehicle would like oncoming and passing traffic, pedestrians and road intersections. But, for a while now, we cannot see this in action but it’s a huge boost to army’s effort of introducing robotic technologies in war times as soldiers carrying cargo posed a great risks to their lives.
[Image Credit: Lockheed Martin]
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ScienceSwitch 
This raises interesting questions about how far it is possible to go in employing robotic or unmanned equipment/weaponry/whatever in warfare.
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Hope they speed this up and get it into the field. A lot of soldiers have lost limbs to explosive devices while driving trucks on mundane but unavoidable supply runs. Set foot into Walter Reed hospital on any given day and you will see firsthand the urgent need for this technology in the field.
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Very interesting, Just need to programme it with which shops and markets to stop at!
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Hopefully they’ll eventually incorporate sensors to discover those pesty land mines in advance.
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Excellent article! I really enjoyed reading it!
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Hmnn … Wonder when someone will find a use for those?
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Why do men always seem to have black backgrounds?
Barbara
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For me, this theme happens to be my favorite, not that dark color is my favorite. 🙂
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Unbelievable! Have introduced your blog to a young friend, Heathcliff, who’s totally wound up in science. I hope he contacts you!
Amazing facts.
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Thank you so much! 🙂
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No death. No press. War on!
Your blog is great!
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Reblogged this on AlternativeMedicineFreedom and commented:
Awesome article!
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Awesome site and awesome content! I shared this article on my Facebook. Very good article! Thanks
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Thanks! 🙂
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The futuristic has come knocking.
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Yeah. 🙂
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Oh, how I have missed that shopworn phrase “military-industrial complex.” It almost makes a person sound like he knows what he’s talking about. To prejudge a product as worthless at this stage is asinine at best. Sorry, Chucky, give us some facts to support your bloviated assertions.
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Another worthless product promoted by the military-industrial complex.
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Chucky buddy, you have a reply from pi314chron below. 🙂
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It’s a whole new world with these “unmanned” technologies. Have to admit that my favorite use comes at African wildlife refuges, where elephants are slaughtered for their tusks. They want to use drones to police the poachers; i sure hope it works!
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Thanks for the comment, OmbudsBen. 🙂
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I suppose the vehicles retain a driving cabin as normal for those times when … when … for WHEN? I mean, why should they be provided with the normal means of movement? Is there likelihood of the auto function’s not operating?
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This system of transportation hasn’t been provided for the normal means, but the demonstration centers about the safety of soldiers while delivering goods in a hostile territory.
These are war machine, the probability of the system failure is low as compared to nonwar machines.
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They LOOK like ordinary trucks, with driving cabins; which I why I asked. No matter.
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Of course, they are self-driving vehicles that look like the ordinary ones.
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They would have modified existing vehicles instead of engineering the entire truck from the ground up. Therefore, the existing cabin would still exist, and there wouldn’t be a lot of cosmetic changes.
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Indeed – all those roadside explosives. very interesting.
David
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Thanks for reading. 🙂
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Reblogged this on The Gordian Knot and commented:
Pretty cool.
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