OSHKOSH, WIS. (March 15) – Oshkosh Truck Corporation’s TerraMax truck traveled 1.2 miles into the desert on Saturday morning, March 13, before being confounded by obstacles that it “thought” were in its way. This may have been the result of a sensor glitch that provided too much input to the vehicle’s six high-powered computers.
Although it didn’t go the farthest (7.4 miles covered by Carnegie Mellon’s Sandstorm), the TerraMax truck came in fifth in terms of distance covered, in a race where 10 of the 15 competitors withdrew or never got off the start line.
“Despite the relatively short distance that the TerraMax truck traveled during the race, Oshkosh has come a long way in our understanding and development of driverless vehicles. This has been a very valuable effort, and we’ll go back with many lessons learned because this is really just the beginning of our work on autonomous vehicle technologies,” said Don Verhoff, Oshkosh’s executive vice president of technology.
The TerraMax truck is now enroute to Oshkosh’s headquarters, in Oshkosh, Wis., for further evaluation.
