SWITCH ON CHARGERTRON ALWAYS CHANGING REARRANGING
Typically, when it comes to transports, particularly of the armored variety, you have two choices, and you can only choose one. Do you go with wheels for the obvious advantages on roads and the like, or treads, for difficult terrain? DARPA seems to have found a way to get the best of both worlds with their Reconfigurable Wheel-Track technology.
Working with Carnegie Mellon University on a number of vehicle related projects, the RWT is but one of DARPA’s many vehicular experiments. The wheels can reconfigure into treads withing 2 seconds, and the change doesn’t even require the vehicle to come to a stop.
That said, the wheels are far from hitting mass production. Despite that, it’s not hard to see the many non-military applications for such technology. For example, in construction; you could easily see how beneficial it would be for the sorts of midsize equipment that needs to transition between city streets and much rougher conditions. So while the various X-Vehicle projects are far off from really entering the world at large, they’re likely the best look into 20 minutes in the future you’re likely to find.
Source: Engadget
About Author
