Helicopter and six-wheeler make a mean, crewless recon team
The autonomous team-up could prove useful in areas where it’s deemed unsafe to put troops or humanitarian workers on the ground. In a chemically contaminated area, for instance, the two vehicles could combine for long-range resupply or reconnaissance missions. “(It) has enormous potential to bring the future ground commander an adaptable, module, responsive and smart capability that can evolve as quickly as needed,” Paul Rogers, director of the U.S. Army’s TARDEC division said.
The Black Hawk helicopter was supplied by the military and then fitted with a “Matrix” autonomy kit developed by Sikorsky. The customized Land Tamer, meanwhile, was put together by the Carnegie Mellon University and uses a combination of radar and LIDAR — a laser-based equivalent of radar — to map and process its surroundings in real-time. At the moment it’s all for research purposes, but it’s not hard to see a day when different autonomous vehicles are able to team up in the field, sort of like (somewhat less sentient) Transformers and Mini-Cons.
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