NAMC advances autonomous vehicle testing for US soldiers

Over the next year, American soldiers will be testing autonomous vehicles as part of a competition by National Advanced Mobility Consortium (NAMC). The systems to be tested come from four shortlisted companies: a group compiled of Applied Research Associates, Neya Systems and Polaris; General Dynamics Land Systems; HDT Expeditionary Systems; Howe & Howe Technologies. NAMC chose the companies after testing ten concepts under the Squad Multipurpose Equipment Transport vehicles project. Each company will
June 5, 2018 Read time: 2 mins
© F11photo | Dreamstime.com

Over the next year, American soldiers will be testing autonomous vehicles as part of a competition by National Advanced Mobility Consortium (8799 NAMC).

The systems to be tested come from four shortlisted companies: a group compiled of Applied Research Associates, Neya Systems and Polaris; General Dynamics Land Systems; HDT Expeditionary Systems; Howe & Howe Technologies.

NAMC chose the companies after testing ten concepts under the Squad Multipurpose Equipment Transport vehicles project. Each company will receive up to $5 million towards the testing and trial of their system, according to NAM, the industry arm of the Defense Mobility Enterprise (DME).

The DME, which is focused on attracting organisations not already working with the government, speeds the acquisition process to ensure innovations assist soldiers as soon as possible. The DME also allows more commercial-type intellectual property protections.

NAMC says that since 2008 its R&D projects have yielded defence projects valued at more than $450 million. The group says that it is recognised as the effective, established consortium for research, development, prototyping and production for manned and unmanned autonomy-enabled military ground vehicle systems and related technologies in the US. 

Booth 116

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Singapore to develop and trial autonomous buses
    April 10, 2017
    As part of efforts by the Committee on Autonomous Road Transport for Singapore (CARTS) to develop and deploy autonomous vehicles (AVs) to enhance Singapore’s land transport system, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) has signed a partnership agreement with ST Kinetics to develop and trial autonomous buses. ST Kinetics will develop and integrate the AV technologies on to two 40-seater electric buses that can be deployed to serve fixed and scheduled services for intra- and inter-town travel in the future.
    Read More
  • NHTSA to add automatic braking systems vehicle safety features
    January 23, 2015
    US Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx has announced that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration plans to add two cutting-edge automatic emergency braking systems to the recommended advanced safety features included under its New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) – the latest step in a half-century of safety innovations that have saved more than 600,000 lives, according to new NHTSA research. The agency plans to continue to encourage development and commercialization of additional promising saf
    Read More
  • Counting the environmental costs of ITS deployment
    October 29, 2015
    David Crawford looks at the latest thinking about calculating the benefits associated with the environmental side of ITS schemes. The penny is dropping that some environmental costs “are being shifted outside the traditional bounds of evaluation methods” for ITS-based road transport projects, according to researchers at the UK University of Leeds’ Institute for Transport Studies.
    Read More
  • EU project to make urban freight management more sustainable
    February 1, 2012
    Urban freight policies are becoming more common in European cities and regions. However, it is still difficult to evaluate and transfer the knowledge gained from the different city logistics measures implemented by local authorities. The SUGAR project aims to tackle this by establishing a systematic approach towards best practices identification and assessment, and by developing urban freight plans and actions.
    Read More

Highlighted Content