The robotics team at Carnegie Mellon University have teamed up with the newly formed automation department of Caterpillar, the construction equipment makers famous for these formidable trucks capable of shifting a 240 ton payload.

This driverless truck project is part of an ongoing automatation project set up initially with the mining giants BHP who are ploughing a fair bit of cash into its development.

Known technology that effectively “remote-controls” a vehicle is pretty unusable on these trucks as the software involved need to be carefully programmed to understand all aspects of the trucks size and maneuverability, entirely different of course from a humble 4×4.

Many robots are fitted with sensors that tell it to back off when they hit an object and to turn in another direction, but of course if a 700 ton truck “bumps” into something that “thing” will quickly become a “nothing”.

Via Wired