WARREN – The U.S. Army Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center continued to test its autonomous vehicle technology on June 23 on a 40-mile loop of public roads along Interstate 69 in Lapeer County in hopes that someday Army convoys will be able to travel in harm’s way and not threaten the lives of soldiers behind steering wheels.

In this test, there was a driver in each of the four military tractors, some hauling trailers, so they were not autonomous. The focus was on making sure radio communications between the lead vehicle and those following in semi-autonomous mode worked correctly, said Scott Heim, the Civilian Project Lead.

“The tests went very well,” Heim said. “We still have some growing pains.”

TARDEC, working with the Michigan Department of Transportation, was conducting tests of vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure technology that was described as critical to future driverless and connected vehicle functionality. This technology is called Dedicated Short-Range Communications radios. 

“We’re still crunching the numbers,” Heim said. “It will be sometime before we get the final results. Other commercial industry partners are interested in doing a mixed convoy of military and commercial trucks with us later on.”

In the field, the Army would like to send convoys lead by a manned armored vehicle with unarmored autonomous trucks following. Unarmored trucks are less expensive and can carry greater payloads, Heim said. A big issue is military vehicles often go off-road, a huge obstacle autonomous commercial vehicles won’t face, Heim said. Plus most of the trucks in the Army inventory are 30 years old.

“We have to prove we can take the older trucks and make them autonomous,” he said. “We’re the research branch of the Army so we have to push the envelope and make it possible. We are doing that now through incremental steps.”