Autonomous Autos: New Kit Converts Any Vehicle Into a Robot (With Video)

• robotics
• cars
• auto technology
• military

There are plenty of ways that the revolution in unmanned vehicles can reach beyond specially made frontline aircraft and tracked robots. Why not retrofit existing vehicles to make them unmanned? Utah-based Kairos Autonomi sells a conversion kit called the Pronto4 Strap-On Autonomy System that can transform any steered vehicle into an autonomous unmanned ground vehicle.

By installing a control box and drilling four holes in the vehicle’s floor to allow wires to pass through, a crew can make a vehicle unmanned or remotely operated in 4 hours. So far the customers at Naval Air Station Fallon in Nevada have converted trucks into test targets for warplane training (the kits are not for sale to the general public). But the future of the system will involve increasing the smarts of more mundane machines, like bulldozers, all-terrain vehicles, Humvees and trucks. Company officials say the hardware is versatile enough to be used in boats and cars.

At this week’s Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International demonstration at Webster Field in Maryland, the company showcased a pickup truck fitted with a heavy weapon, similar to the “technicals” used in Somalia and Iraq. The red truck, complete with a license plate scrawled in Arabic, followed a series of waypoints gathered earlier by a manned vehicle. These targets have gone as fast as 90 mph during tests, and are expected to be realistically difficult targets to track from an airplane.



A GPS responder was affixed to the roof, while emergency shutdown buttons were mounted above the headlights, taillights and inside the cab. Inside, a ring of actuators around the steering column steers the vehicle, while the transmission and throttle are controlled by lines from a main box.

The company sells a robotic limb attachment, and is also pursuing weaponization options for its retrofitting kits. With the addition of a remotely operated weapon, such as the CROW, an unmanned system could take care of the driving while a soldier tele-operates the weapon from a safe distance. The company is also marketing the device to covert military operators. Special operations troops often use ATVs in Afghanistan, and having a co-pilot programmed to steer yours during a night mission could be appreciated.

Kairos Autonomi also sell to other roboteers. For example, a team from Penn State was shopping for an ATV-to-droid converter during the demonstration. Here’s the letdown: Nothing the company sells is road-worthy yet—don’t let the website’s online store fool you. Company officials say the liability is just too great to sell the system to the public. But the ability to turn your old clunker into a robot (instead of cashing it in) is closer than you think.

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