Control Engineering

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Production of Automated Vehicles - military
September 21, 2007

Let's run the numbers and take a look at what the world might look like after the Nov. 3, 2007 DARPA Grand Challenge race.  What might be the path to the congressionally mandated move to driverless vehicles?

Nov. 4, 2007 at the awards banquet who won the race is announced, proving that it has been done.  Suddenly a lot of people become interested in supplying the US Army with the many driverless system they need.

THE MIL MARKET
Congress has ordered that one third of the armed forces ground vehicles be made driverless as soon as possible and before 2015.  Checking with the US Army Fact File people they said that the US Army has one million ground vehicles that the congressional mandate applies to.  One third would be would be 333,334 vehicles that need to be made driverless.  Figuring 10% spares, that would be 33,334 additional guidance systems for a total of  366,668 driverless systems.  Rounding up that would mean that the Army is going to need about 400,000 systems as soon as possible.



PARTS
Most of the computer and sensor manufacturers that I have spoken to say they would consider an order for 400,000 of anything they make a "very big order", meaning it would stress their manufacturing capacity.  If they have an order in hand they can use it as collateral to expand their capacity.

INSTALL
 "There are no contracts are associated with winning the race" DARPA officials have said several times.  What this means is that there are already contracts in place to do the major maintenance, overhaul, modification and field changes for each of the types of vehicles that the armed forces owns.  It will be these existing centers most likely that will be doing the driverless conversion of each vehicle type. In the case of new vehicles, they will be ordered from the factory with the driverless option on them.

TOTAL NUMBER
As it turns out the Air Force is the armed force that has the largest number of ground vehicles.  This seems odd, them being the Air Force, but that is the nature of facts - they are often not what you would expect.  The Coast Guard,  Marines, Navy and National Guard represent additional numbers of vehicles that will need to be made driverless.  So the number of driverless system that the Army needs is just the start.

THE DIVIDENDS
At AIM we have estimated that driverless vehicles will save at least one driver's life a day.  That is 365 Army drivers a year.  Each life saved impacts 250 to 300 friends and relatives - who vote.  Since there are usually two drivers driving 12 hours shifts to keep the Army's transportation system in motion 24/7 the 400,000 "Iron Mikes" doing the driving will take the place of 800,000 drivers.  This should take some of the pressure off recruiters, reduce the manpower shortage, and reduce the need for having a draft. An Iron Mike does not get paid, it does not have fringe benefits, no GI Bill, no medical plan, no survivor benefits package - it is just a machine, an accessory on a truck that can be maintained for a fraction of the cost of a human driver.  Lots of people are put to work in good paying jobs designing, building, installing, maintaining and repairing these machines.  There is no down side to it that I can see.

Posted by Paul Grayson on September 21, 2007 | Comments (0)