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Kodiak Roboticshas unveiled its first autonomous test vehicle for the U.S. Department of Defense , a Ford F-150 cartridge hand truck that the inauguration has upfitted with its software and detector stack .
The DOD is using the vehicle to screen self-reliant surveillance and reconnaissance missions in off - road terrain , diverse useable conditions and GPS - gainsay environments . Kodiak won the $ 50 milliontwo - year declaration with the Army in December 2022 , and now has another year to make and deliver two off - road - capable vehicles based on the F-150 . If the pilot is successful , Kodiak could be one of the Army ’s succeeding married person as it act upon to pull ahead autonomous military applications .
“ finally , the field of honor of tomorrow is going to be sovereign , ” Don Burnette , CEO and co - founder of Kodiak , told TechCrunch . “ We want to get hands and woman out of harm ’s direction . And this is the technology that ’s become to take us into the future of contest environs . ”
Most of Kodiak ’s go - to - market is focus aroundcommercializing ego - driving motortruck , but many advanced mobility companies are seeing the military machine as a nimble path to revenue . The Army has been moving forward withvarious projectsdedicated to autonomous driving , and the Air Force has signalise on electric vertical takeoff and landing ( eVTOL ) companies likeArcher AviationandJoby Aviationto promote advanced aerial engineering in interior defense strategies .
As part of its partnership with the DoD , Kodiak is primarily providing the software and sensor suite , and will work with hardware providers on integrate the Kodiak Driver onto a next - gen , purpose - build , ground reconnaissance fomite , which has not yet been designed or built . Kodiak and the DoD had been fiddle with the idea of an ATV - way vehicle , but find those to be too little for the use case .
“ [ ATV - alike vehicles ] tend to be quite underpowered and they ca n’t dribble both a lot of compute and perception and people , ” Burnette severalise TechCrunch . “ So the F-150 was more sizing - overbold equivalent to the ultimate political program that the Army is proceed for . And it ’s a very capable fomite . ”
The most authoritative affair , from Kodiak ’s view , is being capable to provide a software program and sensor stack that can be integrated into multiple unlike vehicle type and serve well a variety of purpose cases . That ’s where Kodiak ’s modular , swappable SensorPods come in , which the inauguration uses on its Class-8 truck . Kodiak says it adjust its seedpod for defense applications , and that the so - shout DefensePod can be switched out in the field in 10 minute or less by a technician with no specialized training . It took less than six calendar month for the Kodiak Driver to be installed in a new fomite , agree to the troupe .
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“ We explicate our autonomous drive system in a way that is tributary and generally applicable to other surroundings outside of over the route main road , ” state Burnette . “ We believe that ’s a strategical advantage . And we want to take advantage of the fact that our system of rules work in these two-fold use surroundings . ”
