Kodiak Robotics truck in entrance of an IKEA retailer.
Source: Kodiak Robotics
Self-driving truck startup Kodiak Robotics mentioned Tuesday that it received a two-year, $49.9 million contract from the U.S. Department of Defense to assist develop automated fight automobiles for the U.S. Army.
The firm mentioned the automobiles can be tailor-made for reconnaissance, surveillance and different missions that might current a excessive danger to a human driver.
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The contract was awarded by the DoD’s Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) and is a part of the Army’s ongoing Robotic Combat Vehicle (RCV) program.
“We are proud to have the opportunity to leverage our cutting-edge self-driving technology for defense applications, and believe our work with DIU and the U.S. Army will both help strengthen national security and hasten our path to commercial deployment,” Kodiak CEO Don Burnette mentioned in a press release.
DIU mentioned it obtained 33 responses to its preliminary solicitation in October, and chosen Kodiak and one other vendor, improvement software program supplier Applied Intuition, after an intensive evaluation course of. Kodiak has been testing its autonomous vehicles in Texas since 2019, and counts logistics giants Werner Enterprises and U.S. Xpress and Swedish home-goods large IKEA amongst its pilot clients.
“The commercial sector has invested heavily in this technology, and we are excited to see this in action by leveraging the self-driving technology that is working on American highways today,” mentioned Lieutenant Colonel Chris Orlowski, a product supervisor with the RCV program.
The award marks the most recent improvement within the DoD’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Grand Challenge self-driving competitions, which started in 2004.
“There has been a revolution in the techniques and capabilities of uncrewed ground vehicles occurring in the private sector over the past two decades,” mentioned Kevin O’Brien, technical director for DIU’s Autonomy Portfolio.
Source: www.cnbc.com”