Hard Platooning

Tether is developing an Unmanned Ground Vehicle Convoy Operations in Narrow Spaces (UGVCONS) concept by testing them on actual vehicles on-road, off-road, in narrow & confined spaces, through deep water, in rain & mud, day & night, etc. The concept is a radio-silent, zero  EMF solution that does not use GPS at all. The concept focuses on rapid deployment, high reliability and low cost by circumventing the typical issues of autonomy. The operation of the proposed system can be proven, unlike typical self-driving solutions that use black box ML or AI solutions. Existing work on commercial trucks by Tether will be translated and studied in the context of the ROUGE-Fires convoy in a variety of on/off-road conditions. The ability to track the leader’s path is expected to be on the order of inches. The system is robust in all weather conditions and eliminates the need for high compute which enables reliable, explainable, cost effective and rapid deployment.