DARPA has been working on off-road autonomous vehicles for decades. Now it is developing a combat-sized unmanned tank. Robotic Autonomy in Complex Environments with Resiliency (RACER) program, 6 meters long and 12 tons RACER Heavy Platform (RHP), a tracked “optionally manned combat vehicle” weighing 1000 kg, has entered the testing phase. Here are the details…
DARPA’s unmanned tank passes its first field test
The RHP is based on the Textron Ripsaw M5 and was tested on 24 square kilometers of off-road terrain in Texas late last year. In tests, RHP 48 km more distance It was seen that it passed in autonomous (unmanned) mode. These tests also included various factors such as low-level autonomous control, collection of sensor data sets, mobility evaluation and operations improvement.
The RACER program started with the Grand Challenge event in 2004 and aimed to collect ideas for autonomous vehicle technologies. Only Carnegie Mellon University’s “Sandstorm” Hummer successfully completed the competition. The RACER program has been working on different autonomous vehicle concepts and tests since then.
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The future use case for RHP could be like the current Ripsaw. The M5 can be equipped with detection technology, used as a device to neutralize mines and IEDs, and even armed with a cannon or Javelin launcher. And all this unmanned It can be done in an (automatic) way.
The RACER program is planning another field test six months later this year. Between major tests, smaller-scale tests will continue. DARPA welcomes our questions for more information about RHP or a future equivalent. In the meantime, we’ll be following DARPA’s announcements to learn more about potential uses of RHP.