Why It’s Called The “Crusher” UGV
Writing by Evan Ackerman on Monday, 25 of February , 2008 at 4:58 am
Believe it or not, some of the toys that get DARPA money do make it into general use in the armed services. The Crusher UGV has just graduated from its birthplace at Carnegie Mellon, and is entering the army, albeit a stateside research arm thereof. From the video, it looks like it’s been updated with a new sensor suite, probably to improve its autonomous obstacle avoidance capabilities… It looks a lot like some of the sensors on DARPA Grand/Urban Challenge vehicles, for good reason: they work, especially when designed by CMU. This version of Crusher is designed to navigate itself between GPS waypoints without human intervention, although fully autonomous deployment is still a ways away. Hopefully, passenger cars will be categorized as obstacles to avoid, rather than crush, by then. Video after the jump.
BTW, sorry for the few missed updates, I’ve been attending a some conferences out here in San Francisco, namely the Game Developer’s Conference and WonderCon. You can check out my coverage over on OhGizmo, but I’ll be getting back in the robot groove this week.
VIA [ IEEE ]
Category: Military
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