What will DARPA think of next?

[Matt Leese]

Originally Posted by Billfred

Maybe I'm screwed up in the head, but I think the next level will involve dealing with more traffic. After all, if the military's looking to put autonomous vehicles in combat, they're going to have to deal with things moving around them.

They're not looking for combat vehicles. They're looking to make automated resupply vehicles. This is particularly pertinent given that supply convoys were being heavily targetted by the insurgency in Iraq. If you don't have actual people driving the trucks, it becomes a lot safer to run the convoys. It's also much cheaper for the military (people are expensive). Remember that for every one combat soldier there are something like 10 soldiers behind the lines to make sure that one can fight (those numbers stem from World War 2; I'm not sure what the current figures are but I'd bet them to be higher if anything).

Matt