[1] Primary military uses for the technology are seen as reconnaissance missions and freight transport in high-risk areas without the need of human operators, protecting the soldiers from possible attacks, ambushes or the threat of mines and IEDs.
At the time, Don Verhoff, Oshkosh's executive vice president of technology explained that: "although design development may continue for years, the idea of a driverless convoy of defense vehicles to deliver supplies to the front line, never jeopardizing the welfare of a single driver, is closer than one might imagine."
The 2005 Team TerraMax consisted of Oshkosh Truck, Rockwell Collins, University of Parma's Artificial Vision and Intelligent Systems Laboratory (VisLab) and several financial sponsors.
[6] In October 2010 at the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) Annual Meeting and Exposition at the Washington Convention Center, Oshkosh displayed an FMTV Load Handling System (LHS) variant fitted with TerraMax technology.
The vehicle was demonstrated in June 2014 at the Eurosatory defence exhibition in Paris where it was equipped with a mine roller and autonomously navigated a course that simulated military route clearance missions.
[6] Also in 2015, the US Army worked on requirements documentation for the introduction of leader-follower technology for the Oshkosh 10×10 PLS logistics and support vehicles, which would be used initially as a driver safety mechanism for functions such as braking.
Oshkosh is also involved in a number of other autonomous vehicle projects in conjunction with partners that include TARDEC, Lockheed Martin, Robotic Research, and DCS.
On 27 June 2018, as part of the Expedient Leader Follower (ExLF) programme, Oshkosh received USD49 million to integrate its autonomous technology onto PLS vehicles.
The TARDEC-led programme was awarded through an Other Transaction Authority (OTA) contract and is intended to facilitate the transition to an official Program of Record.
This initial phase was succeeded by the integration of autonomous technology into an additional sixty vehicles, which were then slated for participation in an Operational Technical Demonstration (OTD) in early 2020.
[10] The TerraMax UGV package consists of Oshkosh’s Command Zone electronics, a sensor suite and an advanced operator control unit (OCU).
[1] Command Zone is an integrated control and diagnostics system that is computer-controlled, electronics technology that operates and diagnoses all major vehicle networks.