Mission-Ready Ground Autonomy for Defense

The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) and Overland AI joined together to demonstrate autonomous resupply and wildfire logistics, as well as fire suppression efforts via pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) camera, for wildfire operations at Camp Pendleton, California.

Looks like at least one RACER has crossed the finish line. On Wednesday, DARPA announced that the Robotic Autonomy in Complex Environments with Resiliency (RACER) program, launched in 2021 to develop new vehicle autonomy algorithm technologies, has officially wrapped up. Now, it’s up to the autonomy companies that spun out of it—including Overland AI—to keep the dream of vehicle autonomy going.

DARPA pushed Overland to solve the hardest problem in ground autonomy right from the beginning of our company’s origin: building a reliable and resilient software stack that can be integrated into any ground vehicle. We have proven our autonomy on fleet vehicles, heavy platforms, and most recently on ULTRA, our own fully autonomous tactical vehicle built in-house and in production today. These efforts, spanning the entirety of the RACER program, have always been aimed at expanding the art of the possible with ground autonomy. But we also accelerated the moment autonomy became operationally fielded, which has meant that warfighters will have access to ground autonomy that is both proven and ready. DARPA accelerated our technology through RACER. And we are providing the results back to the warfighter today.