Monica Jackson
Kratos Defense and Security Solutions’ unmanned systems division has received authorization to operate an autonomous vehicle designed for road maintenance operations.
The company said Thursday its Autonomous Impact Protection Vehicle, also called Autonomous Truck Mounted Attenuator, was approved for a statewide deployment effort to paint lines on roadways.
Steve Fendley, president of Kratos USD, said the platform is a result of internally funded efforts to build and field unmanned systems intended for military and civil applications.
AIPV is based on an autonomous leader/follower system the company originally designed for military use.
The vehicle’s electro-mechanical retrofit kit features a navigation technology built to function in both GPS and GPS-denied environments, as well as encrypted vehicle-to-vehicle communications, obstacle detection/avoidance, safety system and control systems.
The Federal Highway Administration has found that work zone crash incidents occur every five minutes on average and result to 70 injuries every day.
Kratos developed AIPV as part of efforts to help protect road construction personnel from accidents without them manning the vehicle itself.
