"Crusher" robotic vehicle

Drive2Survive · Post by **Drive2Survive** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 12:18 am

Not a monster truck per se, but I came across this article on IEEE Spectrum online about a DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) autonomous vehicle project for the US military, which recently staged a demonstration that involved crushing some cars :twisted:

Apart from driving itself, It can also be driven by remote control - that would have to be the coolest toy ever!

Last week, our correspondent Sally Adee went to Fort Bliss, Texas, to attend the field trials of DARPA's 6.5-ton unmanned, autonomous off-road vehicle, Crusher, developed by Carnegie Mellon's National Robotics Engineering Center.

On the obstacle course, Crusher proved true to its name by obliterating old cars like a monster truck. But it's also smart enough to avoid certain obstacles in its path. Obstacles like our intrepid reporter herself!

Blog post with short clips (requires QuickTime):
http://blogs.spectrum.ieee.org/automato ... hicle.html

Complete video report (Flash player):
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/video?id=241

Slayer · Post by **Slayer** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 1:54 pm

with a gamepad, amazing lol

E J D · Post by **E J D** » Sat May 31, 2008 5:38 am

Puts me in mind of an old episode of Top Gear... they got some university boffins to modify a full size car into radio control, retaining performance and handling.

Imagine if they did that with a monster truck! [(-:]