Kodiak Robotics has unveiled its first autonomous test vehicle for the US Department of Defense, a Ford F-150 truck that the startup has outfitted with its software and sensor stack.
DOD uses the vehicle to test autonomous surveillance and reconnaissance missions in off-road terrain, diverse operational conditions and GPS-challenged environments. Kodiak won the two-year, $50 million contract with the Army in December 2022 and now has another year to build and deliver two off-road vehicles based on the F-150. If the pilot is successful, Kodiak could be one of the Army’s future partners as it works to advance autonomous military applications.
“Ultimately, the battlefield of tomorrow will be autonomous,” Don Burnette, CEO and co-founder of Kodiak, told TechCrunch. “We want to get men and women out of harm’s way. And this is the technology that will lead us into the future of contested environments.”
Most of Kodiak’s launch is focused on commercializing autonomous trucks, but many advanced mobility companies see the military as a faster path to revenue. The Army has moved on with various projects dedicated to autonomous driving and the Air Force has signed electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) companies such as Archer Aviation and Joby Aviation to enhance advanced air technology in national defense strategies.
As part of its partnership with the DoD, Kodiak is primarily providing the software and sensor suite and will work with hardware providers to integrate the Kodiak Driver into a next-generation, purpose-built ground reconnaissance vehicle that has yet to be designed or built. . Kodiak and the DoD toyed with the idea of an ATV-type vehicle, but found they were too small for the use case.
“[ATV-like vehicles] they tend to be pretty low-powered and can’t carry as much computation as detection and people,” Burnette told TechCrunch. “So the F-150 was on a larger scale equivalent to the ultimate platform that the Army wants. And it’s a very capable vehicle.”
The most important thing, from Kodiak’s point of view, is the ability to provide a software and sensor stack that can be integrated into many different types of vehicles and serve a variety of use cases. That’s where Kodiak’s modular, interchangeable SensorPods come in, which the startup uses in its Class 8 trucks. Kodiak says it adapted its pods for defense applications, and that the so-called DefensePod can be disabled in the field in 10 minutes or less by a technician without specialized training. It took less than six months to install Kodiak Driver on a new vehicle, according to the company.
“We’ve developed our self-driving system in a way that’s favorable and broadly applicable to environments other than the highway,” Burnette said. “We believe this is a strategic advantage. And we want to take advantage of the fact that our system works in these dual-use environments.”
