Robotic Nation Evidence

It isn't just that our current vehicles will become unmanned.

Also very important is the fact that robots themselves will become much more useful when why can successfully navigate in dangerous conditions. This makes the number of applications for them multiply.

Think of something like border security, mail/parcel delivery, constant mobile urban police monitoring.

Also, the same perception tools (which is the real breakthrough here -- the mobility platform itself is not) can be used on other types of platforms, such as helicopters or legged robots.

Granted, you would need a large legged robot to hold the Red Team's gimbal. That doesn't make it less exciting :-D
 

The entrants in the last race had major problems and none even finished.

If I remember correctly, their biggest problem was the vision system. The vehicles would plunge into gullies and crash through wire fences.

While I think these can be overcome in the near future, some problems will take much longer before this technology could be used in an urban environment.

For example how does the computer understand water & if its deep enough to cross? What if a human runs in front of it?
 

I don't think the U.S. military is looking for (or expecting) perfection here. All they want is the ability to have a convoy of 20 supply trucks that follow each other with the one in front driven by a human. This will take a Job that currently takes 40 humans to perform (2 per truck switching off with each other every few hours) and make it require only 2 humans.
 

Can't wait to see how quickly these delicious new robo-vehicles can be turned into flaming wrecks. :)

I'll watch anyway.