Skip to main content

Autonomous ATV aids hazardous route clearance missions

In another application for autonomous vehicles, Oshkosh Defense has integrated its TerraMax unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) technology into an Oshkosh MRAP all-terrain vehicle (M-ATV) to demonstrate capabilities for route-clearance missions. M-ATV and other heavy and medium tactical wheeled vehicles equipped with TerraMax UGV technology enables one or multiple vehicles in a route clearance convoy to operate autonomously, resulting in fewer troops exposed to threats. The technology is designed as a modul
May 14, 2014 Read time: 2 mins
In another application for autonomous vehicles, Oshkosh Defense has integrated its TerraMax unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) technology into an Oshkosh MRAP all-terrain vehicle (M-ATV) to demonstrate capabilities for route-clearance missions.

M-ATV and other heavy and medium tactical wheeled vehicles equipped with TerraMax UGV technology enables one or multiple vehicles in a route clearance convoy to operate autonomously, resulting in fewer troops exposed to threats.

The technology is designed as a modular kit that can be integrated into modern production vehicles or retrofitted on to legacy platforms. Vehicles equipped with the TerraMax UGV technology can seamlessly collaborate with manned vehicles to carry out missions at full operational pace. TerraMax UGVs function autonomously across varying terrains and in all weather conditions, day or night and original vehicle payload and performance are retained.

The TerraMax UGV system can be enhanced to intelligently incorporate counter-IED payloads such as ground-penetrating radar and mine rollers. The TerraMax operator control unit also can provide over-the-horizon situational awareness to accompanying manned vehicles. The system is highly interoperable, using a widely adopted, non-proprietary open architecture messaging standard that enables modularity and easy integration of new subsystems.

“The clearance of threats like IEDs, mines and unexploded munitions pose challenges that global military forces have faced since World War II, and are expected to continue long after Afghanistan,” said John Urias, president of Oshkosh Defense. “Our TerraMax UGV technology can bring autonomous capabilities to existing manned vehicle platforms, like the M-ATV, to remove troops from targeted routes and provide greater standoff distance from explosive threats. It also has force-multiplication benefits with one operator controlling several vehicles, so logistics operations can be successfully completed with fewer troops.”

Related Content

  • ProPart AV trial crosses the line
    March 25, 2020
    The perceived safety benefits of autonomous vehicles can only be realised with precise positioning. Ben Spencer reports from Sweden on work by a European consortium which aims to use the technology to allow a truck to carry out an automated lane change
  • Future of tolling: the priorities
    January 14, 2020
    In the final part of his investigation into the future of tolling technology, Josef Czako of Moving Forward Consulting asks what industry figures see as the priorities going forward…
  • New technologies enable increased collaboration, cooperation
    July 17, 2012
    The continued expansion of IP camera networks increases the availability of useful information. At the same time, the opportunity exists to increase inter-agency collaboration. This makes information management all the more necessary in the control room environment. But the transportation sector could do a lot to help itself by gaining a better idea up front of what and how it wants to do things, says Electrosonic's Karl Johnson.
  • The weighty problem of truck routing enforcement
    March 17, 2015
    The growing impact of heavy commercial vehicles on urban and interurban highway infrastructures around the world is driving the need for reliable route access restriction and monitoring. The support role of enforcement is proving fertile ground for ITS development. Bridges are especially vulnerable – and critical in terms of travel delays. The US state of Oregon’s Department of Transportation (ODOT) operates what it claims is one of the country’s most aggressive truck route restriction enforcement programme