Shift Magazine - July 22, 2019 - 26

TerraMax, an unmanned ground vehicle
developed by Oshkosh Defense, is shown
competing in 2007's DARPA Urban Challenge.

The biggest
challenge deals with
perceiving the world
and then processing
the data.

than the Waymos and Teslas of
the world."
Program at the U.S. Army CCDC
He notes that some technolGround Vehicle Systems Center.
ogies that were developed by
Theisen, who manages the
the military - such as GPS and
Expedient Leader-Follower proradars - have been placed into
gram, says the primary purpose
the civilian sector but are now
of autonomous technology in
coming back to benefit the milconvoys is to reduce the number
itary once again.
Bernard Theisen, U.S. Army CCDC
of people operating tactical vehiMany sensors such as higherGround Vehicle Systems Center
cles and limit exposure time to a
end lidar or radar, and some navpotential attack.
igation systems, have been too
The Army plans to issue 30
expensive for Army vehicles.
"optionally manned" vehicles to Fort Polk, La., in September for
"Starting in the late '90s, early 2000s we saw the automotesting, and 30 will go to Fort Sill, Okla., in January, he said.
tive market moving toward active safety sensor technologies,"
"The vehicles that we are going to be issuing will have two
Theisen said. "We were able to start bringing some of the comrobotic functions," Theisen said. "The first one is what we call
mercial sensors back into the tactical fleet, and it enabled us to
the teleoperation, where the commander can remotely control
use the lower-cost sensors to make robotics more affordable on
the motion of the vehicle from a remote location. The second
tactical trucks."
mode is leader-follower, where vehicles robotically follow the
As for whether full autonomy is feasible in the near future,
first vehicle, in which there will be nobody in those follower
Theisen says that while he can't speak for automakers, he
vehicles."
knows the mobility future is complex.
"There's a lot of things that play into it like liability and the legal'A LOT LONGER'
ity of everything like who's responsible if their autonomy fails, the
The U.S. Army CCDC Ground Vehicle Systems Center began
consumer or [automaker]," he said. "There's also the costs of the
developing its autonomous offerings before Theisen started
system that's complex. I don't think there's a price point for the
working there 18 years ago.
sensing computer needed that can be brought down low enough
As Theisen puts it: "We've been doing autonomy a lot longer
for the normal consumer right now." ■
MILITARY continued from p. 24

shift * july 2019

Shift Magazine - July 22, 2019

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