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Darpa Literally Reinvented the Wheel for Army Combat Vehicles
- frankharv 8y agoI am not easily wowed but I got to say it.WOW. The transition from track to round again had a couple of bumps. Its amazing what we can do these days. I wonder if it's a pneumatic, hydraulic or an electrically actuated assembly. Looks like a hydraulic braking system.
- ataturk 8y agoThey'll be able to kill a lot more people in undeclared wars now, sweet!
- mrfusion 8y agoWhat’s the benefit though?
- cocktailpeanuts 8y agoread the article. it's the first sentence.
- stefan_ 8y agoWhat is the benefit on this suburban parking hell landscape? That's where they had their demo, after all.
- PhasmaFelis 8y agoThe benefit of filming in the parking lot of the engineering building is that you don't have to drag your prototype and a film crew out to the nearest swamp.
- intrasight 8y agoThe "nearest swamp" is pretty near with all the rain we've been having here. Hopefully we'll see a side-by-side comparison in the mud soon.
- mrfusion 8y agoI mean what’s the benefit of this design for rough Terrian. Obviously I read the article.
- detaro 8y agoAs with any tracked vehicle: Larger, flat surface area touching the ground results in better grip on soft ground and is less prone to sinking in. Small track-sections like here obviously aren't as good at that as full, tank-style treads, but easier to add to a wheeled vehicle and allow normal steering. There's all kinds of companies making conversion kits to such (non-shape-shifting) small tracks for trucks and SUVs, not sure if there's a military example of that exact style.
- AndrewKemendo 8y agoThat thing looks like a maintenance nightmare.
- adventured 8y agoYou're thinking of the present. It's first stage tech. From here you'd keep iterating - learning, improving, trying various approaches.
- pimlottc 8y agoSure, but it seems almost certain to have more mechanical issues over time than a traditional wheel that doesn't have so many, er, moving parts.
- PhasmaFelis 8y agoI'm hardly an expert, but I believe caterpillar treads have been in regular use for over a century and still take loads of maintenance compared to wheels. However effective it may ultimately be, it seems unlikely that this team will solve that particular problem.
- vvanders 8y agoYup, quickest way to eat into your bank account is to "save" money buying a 20k hour+ old excavator.
- DenisM 8y agoYou’re not kidding. Maybe the track version is meant to be used only rarely, when the vehicle is truly stuck. So you’re either wasting time digging yourself out with a shovel and saving on maintenance, or you switch to tracks to get out of the ditch and then perform maintenance right after you get back to the base. So long as maintenance is not deferred it seems preferable to do the latter.
- walshemj 8y agoProbably for special purpose vehicles not as a replacement for wheels on Humvees / Landy's
- Shorel 8y agoI can't wait to see the next batmobile with these reconfigurable wheels.
- PhasmaFelis 8y agoI'm curious how it affects performance in wheel mode.
- protomyth 8y agoThat would actually be pretty useful on some farm vehicles. No need to pick a wheeled or tracked tractor, you can have both.
- orbital-decay 8y ago...for twice the price.
- m1el 8y agoI'd like to see it go ride through sandy road. or a gravel road. I'd also like the inventor to use it for a year.
- allthenews 8y agoSo they took a simple wheel and added a couple hundred parts, increasing cost, maintnence complexity, failure potential, and weight. Is it worth it?
- strken 8y agoThat's the point of RnD, though, right? Try a hundred things, extensively test ten of them, end up with one or two that actually work.
- st26 8y agoAnd, if you're lucky, also end up with ten neat brand new ideas that are spawned by the RnD that lead to entirely new things. All the tech that went into this wheel, might coincidentally open other doors, that lead to still other doors...
- allannienhuis 8y agoIsn't the advantage of using tracks supposed to be the increased surface area for traction and weight bearing? This seems to only slightly increase the surface area. It doesn't seem that this would have enough traction advantage to make the complexity worth it.
- oh_sigh 8y agoThe contact patch goes from ~ 1 sqft/tire to ~3-4 sqft/tire. That's pretty significant.
- Avshalom 8y agoStill if that 3-4ft^2 is in the air it's useless. This doesn't stop high centering or driving into a ditch.
- solarkraft 8y agoIt does help with traction, though. That's an improvement over tires. However I wonder why they accept the complexity/reliability problems I assume come with this solution instead of going with added (engageable on demand) tracks.
- stefco_ 8y agoSince it's DARPA it's pretty far from being fielded, so I should think they're only worried about proof of concept at this point. But if you could modularize and ruggedize the wheels and make them easily replaceable and compatible with existing vehicles, then I could certainly imagine this being quite practical in certain situations.
- Johnny555 8y agoSeems like they could get most of the benefit at much less cost and complexity by going with side-by-side "dualies" If one of the tires goes flat, then there's built-in redundancy from the other ones and it could be replaced in the field if needed, but no one's going to be able to overhaul this track mechanism without a shop.
- JohnJamesRambo 8y agoThere’s something deeply poetic to this that DARPA didn’t understand the wisdom in what the “reinvent the wheel” phrase means. This seems to embody every bit of its meaning. Replace rubber tires which are brain dead simple and work very well with zero maintenance with this complicated monstrosity that I have many doubts about even being an improvement.
- Shivetya 8y agoReminds me very much of this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tri-star_(wheel_arrangement) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tri-star_(wheel_arrangement) which was used in the movie Damnation Alley for their Landmaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landmaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landmaster which was quite functional considering it was custom built for the movie. While long, This video https://youtu.be/ZZYT2nYd46o https://youtu.be/ZZYT2nYd46o shows the gang rotate near 40 seconds and at end you can see it used in water (6:33) Being the scenes on its construction https://youtu.be/26n3RsXNyKE https://youtu.be/26n3RsXNyKE and it still exists as of 2016
- toomanybeersies 8y agoIt's literally DARPA's job to fund pie in the sky projects, in the hope that maybe some of them might be practical. The internet was born of a DARPA project, Siri was made with technology spun off from another. Project MAC was filled with groundbreaking research and development of AI and operating systems. All modern operating systems can trace their lineage back to Project MAC. The origins of GPS are also from an earlier DARPA project. Most DARPA projects will never be used in an operational environment, but the technology discovered and lessons learned inevitably find their way into other projects and technologies.
- mc32 8y agoOther than military applications. Looks like this could have potential for snow-bound vehicles. Ski areas and backcountry in the winter.
- rootusrootus 8y agoDefinitely. The concept was commercialized years ago. E.g. http://www.zonepowertrack.com/en http://www.zonepowertrack.com/en
- mirimir 8y agoYes, but static. And actually, it's an old thing, in that Model T conversion kits came out in 1922.[0] Also, later, for mud and sand. 0) http://www.modeltfordsnowmobile.com/lcmainbriefhistory.htm http://www.modeltfordsnowmobile.com/lcmainbriefhistory.htm
- bluedino 8y agoMattracks sell conversions for street driven vehicles that bolt on where normal wheels go http://www.mattracks.co/ http://www.mattracks.co/
- canada_dry 8y agoThis might also be very useful for stair climbing robot and wheelchair designs.
- donarb 8y agoThis design was actually developed by Carnegie Mellon's National Robotics Engineering Center in partnership with DARPA.
- bengrunfeld 8y agoAs a previous soldier (commander of a hummer unit), there are serious challenges that the terrain offers. Bits of sand and rock get into EVERYTHING when you're driving over them. All those small complex moving parts could easily become a nightmare if they got stuck full of grit. Hopefully their engineering takes this into account.
- namirez 8y agoI don't understand the benefit of turning the whole wheel into a triangular track; would it not be sufficient to make only the bottom third flat?
- stefco_ 8y agoNote that the whole assembly rotates when in wheel mode. Making it radially symmetric (i.e. a triangle) in track mode means that it can switch modes with at most a 120 degree rotation rather than having to rotate through up to 360 degrees to get the flat bottom into position.
- namirez 8y agoI didn't say anything about the design of it, which is by the way, very cool. I don't understand the point of the triangle. The same mechanism could be used to change the geometry of the wheel only at the bottom.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- edaemon 8y agoI would guess that it has to do with the tread tension. A rounded top with a flat bottom may leave the tread too loose. The triangle keeps it taught.
- hsienmaneja 8y agoNote: taut (pulled tightly) and taught (past tense of teach) are homophones
- Amygaz 8y agoConsidering that this is a rather a rounded triangle, I doubt it has anything to do with tightness, and more with convenience, esthetic. A symmetrical displacement is also slightly less constraining in term of keeping the overall circumference/periphery (i.e. less deformation). A better design would have been to flatten the wheel into an more oblong or even an egg shape, like snowmobiles or tanks have. However, it requires more mechanical displacement and adjustements.
- make3 8y agoThat video at the end about the army throwing Humvees without properly setting up the chutes was pretty incredible
- sooper 8y agoFrom what I read, not so much "without properly setting up", more sabotage: https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2017/07/05/soldier-charged-in-failed-humvee-air-drop/ https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2017/07/05/soldier-...
- UncleEntity 8y agoMakes me wonder why nobody checked their work, parachute failures get investigated pretty thoroughly so it's not like you're going to get away with burning in a few hummers. Though "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." Back in '90 or so I was on the ground crew for a jump they were doing to impress some Soviet generals and they jumped with too high winds which resulted in two arty canons and a sheridan tank burning in (they got to oscillating so bad the chutes collapsed) and three planes worth of troops ending up in the trees. Bad day to jump but made for an interesting day on the ground.
- ryanmarsh 8y agoDZSO was either begging them to stop or should’ve been relieved for cause.
- UncleEntity 8y agoI think the wind died down temporarily just in time for the go/no go call...was on a jump where that happened and it was nowhere near a fun landing. Thinking further on the heavy drop thing, from what I remember the crew who's vehicle it was were the ones doing most of the rigging with the riggers mostly just checking their work. Too many eyes for it to be an accident methinks.
- mcguire 8y ago
- bunkydoo 8y agoThis is some good work, shows that taking a new approach to things can sometimes be delightfully tantalizing. But remember, the guys at DARPA want to go home and have a beer as well :-)
- ryanmarsh 8y agoGlorious news for all privates who’ve ever had to haul a Humvee out of a mud-filled ditch I’ve seen plenty of tanks get stuck but honest to god I don’t ever recall a HMMWV getting stuck. I used to try to get my HMMWV stuck. That thing is geared so low it just walked out of soup up to the hood. Tracks are advantageous when more surface area is needed to spread the weight out, like soft wet ground (mud) or very fine loose (think sand dunes). It will be nice to have the added mobility for certain missions but I don’t see this becoming organic to most units. The vast majority of missions just don’t need these wheels and they look like they’ll break.
- killjoywashere 8y agoAs a military officer, I pray these never make it past Test and Evaluation. They took essentially one part and turned it into 1000 parts. Anyone who has seen what 20 year old Marines do with these machines, let alone what happens in war, will appreciate that this is a fantastically horrible idea in a war zone. I need high reliability, not high zoot. Let NASA have high zoot.
- haloux 8y ago20 year olds vary. As a 20 year old in the military, I was elbows deep in the B-61 Mod 10 replacing radioisotopic thermoelectric generators. Concession: id be damned if I told you that we didn’t goose the new guy bending over the explosives from time to time.
- killjoywashere 8y agoNothing against 20-year-olds, I was one. I know what I did and what my friends did. I'm no angel. But if was running the engineering team on this, I'd make sure everyone had in their mind "the driver is maximally amped-up, young, and male.
- asfdsfggtfd 8y agoWhat does them being male have to do with anything? Are you implying that being male means that they must be reckless? Or that if they were female they would automatically be careful and gentle? Careful throwing around those negative stereotypes. EDIT: The driver is likely to be getting shot at. This is going to be an order of magnitude more important than slight gender differences.
- psergeant 8y ago> What does them being male have to do with anything? Being young and male correlates strongly with high testosterone, the effects of which you can Google for. Being young and male also correlates with higher incidences of road traffic accidents than most other demographics.
- peterwwillis 8y agoThey could support tracks on existing vehicles by making new hubs/shafts. You remove the hub, add a shaft extension, replace the hub, then get spare rims and tracks out of the boot and do an Indy 500-style fast wheel change. If you hustled my bet is you could do this in 2 minutes with four people. Would add significant unsprung weight but would support existing vehicles. If you modify the vehicle you can support this without changing the hub and shaft/extension, just change the wheels and add tracks. But I'm assuming they wanted to work with a mostly stock vehicle.
- newnewpdro 8y ago"Global War on Terror" Capitalized as if it's a movie title, is strangely unsettling to me.
- 0xfeba 8y agoAlways reminds me of the Wikipedia article that always used to give me a chuckle, since merged: List of wars on concepts[0] [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_wars_on_concepts&redirect=no
- voltagex_ 8y agoPut this on a wheelchair, please.
- LoSboccacc 8y agoYeah if the weight isn’t excessive it be great for mobility, looks like it could also manage a stair mode with all those actuators.
- 1ericnyamu 8y agobit.ly/2Kmahpm
- TheArcane 8y agoWith that amount of funding, they'd better.
- dEnigma 8y agoInteresting concept, but it looks like it wobbles around quite a lot in "wheel-mode"; and this is at the very low speeds shown in the video. I think it's reasonable to assume that it would be almost uncontrollable at higher speeds (leading to damage to itself and other components over time). As others have already mentioned, maintenance would be much more complex too with so many moving parts, all of which could potentially be damaged; and it certainly would be more expensive than a simple wheel.
- Jacq5 8y agoThe idea seems ok, but let's do this in practice. High costs, small efficiency. Especially I like to think about what happens if one part breaks. Now you just have to change the wheel, but in this case, you would have to spend precious time while getting to the problem and then fixing it. Seems really unpractical.
- amai 8y agoRussia did reinvent the wheel a long time ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afJ18eJeNgU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afJ18eJeNgU
- pweissbrod 8y agoWouldnt it be a better/simpler design to just have big tires that can change pressure instead