The Army added an additional test event to Lockheed Martin’s [LMT] Autonomous Mobility Applique System (AMAS) program, asking the company to bring three sensored trucks to Fort Hood in January for a special technology demonstration in the base’s urban terrain mock-up after seeing encouraging test results during Tech Demo 1 earlier this year.
AMAS, a set of low-cost sensors added to existing ground vehicle fleets to allow for driver-assisted or unmanned convoys, was tested at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina from July 15-25. Two Medium Tactical Vehicle Replacements (MTVRs) and two M915 line-haul tractor trucks were outfitted with the system for the test, and they were operated while carrying either completely full or empty payloads, Lockheed Martin unmanned systems business development manager Don Nimblett said during a media briefing last week at the Association of the United States Army’s annual meeting and exposition.
The Army’s Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC) oversaw the effort and developed the test plan to “strictly to test the functionality of the By-Wire Active Safety Kit (BWASK),” which is the vehicle-specific component that connects the common autonomy kit to control each vehicle model’s specific power, steering, braking and other hardware, Nimblett said.
The system was tested in all four modes–off, manual driver, driver warning and driver assist–and it received a 96 percent success rate. Nimblett said of the 4 percent failure rate, “basically there were some issues across the board, I think some of the lane changing, lane departure. But it was almost insignificant, the problems they had.”
Some adjustments were made to the AMAS system during Tech Demo 1, including modifications to the Hill Descent Control. Other changes, including Collision Mitigating Braking and Emergency Braking Assist, will require a bit more work leading up to Tech Demo 2, Nimblett said.
The tech demo skipped over one of the 17 functions, pedestrian detection, because testers ran out of time, but Nimblett said pedestrian detection would be included in the Tech Demo 1.5 being planned for January or Tech Demo 2 in April.
“This January we’re going to do a special Tech Demo 1.5 at the request of the customer, and that is going to be done at Fort Hood with three vehicles, and we will demonstrate a completely unmanned convoy that will operate in urban terrain,” he said. “The mount sites they have in the military installations, the combat cities, the vehicles will go through those completely unmanned as part of that demo.”
Nimblett clarified that there would be zero operator input during the convoy–no one in the vehicles and no one operating them via remote control. He said the details of what challenges would be included are still being discussed by Army officials, but he said he wouldn’t be surprised if obstacles suddenly appeared in the convoy path, and testers could add obstacles to break up the convoy and test to see if the vehicles can rejoin the convoy once they’ve passed the obstacles.
“It’s going to be a very tough test,” he said, noting that the streets in the mock city “are not large at all–the streets in those things are not meant for tractor trailers to be going through, so this should be interesting.”
The more formal Tech Demo 2 will add new vehicles to the mix, including two Palletized Load System trucks, two trucks from the Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles, one Heavy Equipment Transporter and one RG-31 mine-clearance vehicle.
Nimblett said the idea of having an autonomous route clearance convoy was exciting to Army officials, though the other missions could be just as beneficial. AMAS can be used in driver warning mode, which would alert drivers if they’re veering out of their lane or if there’s a potential danger ahead, and it can automatically apply the brakes if needed to avoid collisions in a convoy. Nimblett said that convoy crashes and vehicle rollovers were more common with younger drivers, particularly in tough terrain and in sandstorms, so having these sensors could help avoid injuries and vehicle damage.
AMAS can also be used in driver assist mode, where the truck drives itself either with or without a person actually in the driver’s seat. This mode could be used with a driver in the truck if he or she needed to focus on potential enemy activity along the side of a road, or it could be used without any people in the truck for dangerous missions such as bomb clearance routes or fuel convoys.
AMAS will go through a safety test in May and June and should begin its operational demonstration in July, just a year and a half after the Army awarded a contract to Lockheed Martin.