February 1, 2006:
The Oshkosh truck company, which makes the U.S. Army's heavy trucks, is offering a robotic (unmanned) version of its ten wheel Palletized Load System (PLS) vehicle. This is a big truck, built for cross country movement. The PLS can carry 32 tons of cargo, and Oshkosh has been developing and testing a PLS robotic driving system for several years now. The U.S. Army has long been encouraging industry to develop something like this, and the Oshkosh system is the closest yet to a working system. Working, but not ready for prime time. Not for a few years, anyway. But that's closer than unmanned trucks have been since, well, since forever.