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Off-highway machines exist to help make work safer and more productive for the humans that designed and built them. Thanks to the continued evolution of sensors, software, GPS and other technology, it’s now possible to remove the human from the dangerous environment entirely. Ground-based teleoperated robots are already working in planetary exploration and bomb extraction. Groups are also working to give recognizable, full-size off-highway vehicles some level of autonomy, thereby entrusting the machine to make the appropriate choices required to complete a task or a mission.

The United States wants to employ unmanned ground vehicles for its military operations. Nearly a decade ago, a Congressional mandate, “National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2001” said, “It shall be a goal of the Armed Forces to achieve the fielding of unmanned, remotely controlled technology such that by 2015, one-third of the operational ground combat vehicles of the Armed Forces are unmanned.”

With a futuristic goal to be met in a relatively short amount of time, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) — the central research and development group for the U.S. Dept. of Defense (DoD) — organized the first DARPA Grand Challenge, focusing on autonomous robotic ground vehicles. DARPA hoped the competition would spur the innovation between OEMs, suppliers, and academia that was needed to meet the 2015 goal.

The competition caught the attention of engineers at Oshkosh Corp., Oshkosh, WI. Surviving the Grand Challenge’s rough desert terrain is exactly what its vehicles are designed to do. Oshkosh is also acutely aware of the dangers to which military convoys are exposed everyday.

“Oshkosh’s goal is to develop technology that will help the war fighter,” says Gary Schmiedel, Oshkosh Corp.’s vice president of advanced products engineering and Defense engineering and technology. “Over the last five years we have seen soldiers and Marines getting hammered by IEDs [improvised explosive devices]. If the soldiers are not in the cab, they are not going to get hurt when that bomb goes off. That is the best armor we can give them. You don’t want people on those dangerous missions.”

DARPA Grand Challenge helps direct development
For the inaugural 2004 DARPA Grand Challenge, Oshkosh teamed with the Italian University of Parma for its vision sensing expertise while Ohio State University handled the software. “For the first go-round we relied a lot on our partners for the automation of the vehicle, and we supplied the truck,” says John Beck, chief engineer, unmanned systems, Oshkosh Corp.

The 2004 route was 142 miles through the Mojave Desert. Perhaps proving the U.S. DoD’s belief that crucial work needed to be done, of the 15 finalists entered, the best showing was a vehicle that traveled a mere 7.5 miles. The $1 million grand prize stayed in the bank.

“The 2004 event was equivalent to the Wright brothers’ flight at Kitty Hawk, where their airplane didn’t fly very far but showed that flight was possible,” Dr. Tony Tether, DARPA’s former director, said at the time.

Time wasn’t wasted between the first and second DARPA Grand Challenges: in 2005, out of 195 teams that applied, 23 qualified for the competition, and five finished the 131-mile course.

Based on the Oshkosh MTVR truck, the 16-ton, six-wheel-drive TerraMax was among the vehicles that made history along with four other robotic vehicles. By finding their way along the desert course near Primm, NV, the driverless vehicles demonstrated that vehicles could drive long distances across difficult terrain at speeds that were appropriate for military work.

“The rules for the DARPA Grand Challenge gave us a set of requirements that no one else had given at the time,” says Beck, “It provided an excellent framework, for which we started working toward full autonomy. Teleoperation isn’t practical for long missions at high speeds.”