Driverless Vehicles Make Inroads in Military - Velodyne Lidar

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Driverless Convoys and Carrying Cargo: Robotics Lighten the Load By Brett Davis Automated technology in the military arena is proceeding along a variety of fronts, as several companies around the world are seeking to lighten the loads of soldiers or keep them out of logistics convoys. Lockheed Martin is working on both fronts. With the AutoMate Convoy Module, a bolt-on system of hardware and software that can convert military trucks into remote-controlled or self-driving vehicles, it is seeking to minimize the number of soldiers who need to be present in convoys. That’s feeding into the U.S. Army’s AMAS program, which stands for Autonomous Mobility Applique System, a Joint Capability Technology Demonstration effort that’s intended to become a program of record. Driving convoys in warzones is necessary to resupply soldiers in the field, but it’s a hazardous duty, and convoys are a favorite victim of the signature weapon of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the roadside bomb, or improvised explosive device. “You could conceivably have a very small number of soldiers devoted to driving,” says Joe Zinecker, Lockheed Martin’s director of combat maneuver systems at the Missiles and Fire Control division. “The system has the capability to get that down to zero. The lead vehicle could be unmanned. You could, in theory, have no soldiers driving it whatsoever,” although he admits that’s a little way off. The appliqué system that will make up AMAS grew out of CAST, the Convoy Active Safety Technology system effort started in 2005 by the Joint Ground Robotics Enterprise and the Army’s Tank Automotive Research and Development Engineering Center. That in turn grew out of the Autonomous Land Vehicle, or ALV, a hulking, 10-foot-tall self-driving vehicle developed in 1985 by DARPA and what was then Martin Marietta (in fact, some of the ALV engineers work on the AutoMate Module program today). By the time CAST wrapped up in 2011, it had driven more than 16,000 miles autonomously with no mishaps with convoys of as many as five vehicles. However, the CAST software was “written by engineers for engineers,” Zinecker says, and anything headed into the field needs to be easier to fit on various types of vehicles and be “much more maintainable.” That’s the goal of the appliqué kit for AMAS, which is still in the laboratory at the moment. The first field tests are scheduled for this summer. The company plans to set up convoy tests, where vehicles must not only avoid obstacles but other vehicles attempting to interfere with them, just as they would in the field. 8 MISSION CRITICAL • May 2013
Self-driving trucks take to the road as part of the CAST demonstration. Photo courtesy Lockheed Martin. AMAS is intended to be “an autonomy kit coupled with a by-wire kit that can be fitted to almost any vehicle,” Zinecker says. It consists of TV cameras, scanners, radars, lidars and a laser scanner, along with actuators that can operate the brakes, steering column and active safety kit. “So, basically with the AMAS system, you have an option of turning on the active safety kit that gives warnings to the driver … [and it] ranges all the way up to full autonomy,” Zinecker says. Competition on the Road Lockheed Martin is far from alone in the appliqué robotic kit space, although it may have been in it longer than many competitors. TORC Robotics, based in Virginia, markets three levels of drive-by-wire kits that allow vehicle functions to be monitored and controlled remotely or even allow the vehicles to drive autonomously. Utah-based Kairos Autonomi markets the Pronto4 appliqué kit that converts vehicles into optionally manned ones. It recently wrapped up the first phase of contract work installing kits to create unmanned target vehicles for National Guard Bureau test sites across the country. Switzerland’s Ruag Defence showed a new concept for robotic vehicle control, VERO, at the IDEX international defense exhibition in Abu Dhabi in February (for more on that show, see the April issue of Unmanned Systems). The company has developed the appliqué kit for the Swiss army Eagle IV military vehicle, allowing it to be driven by a human or operated remotely, but it can be retrofitted to existing vehicles. The company is planning VERO in three phases: remote control via radio link by the end of 2013; semiautonomous control in 2014, meaning preplanned courses could be programmed into the system; and autonomous operation after that. Oshkosh Defense also has its TerraMax kit, which can convert military vehicles into unmanned systems. Like AutoMate, it’s a system of software and sensors that can connect to the drive-by-wire systems of military trucks. The company has wrapped up a demonstration conducted with the Robotics Technology Consortium and is now upgrading the system with new computing smarts. It’s also a bit of a celebrity, having made an appearance on a recent episode of the BBC’s car-nut show “Top Gear,” where it took part in a cross-country race against show host James May. MISSION CRITICAL • May 2013 9
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Driverless Vehicles Make Inroads in Military - Velodyne Lidar

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