CMU Working on 700 Ton Autonomous Robot

Posted 10 Sep 2008 at 21:28 UTC (updated 10 Sep 2008 at 21:29 UTC) by steve

According to a CMU new release, CMU's National Robotics Engineering Center (NREC) and Caterpillar Inc. are working together on a project to turn Caterpillar's two largest mining trucks, the 793D the 700 ton 797B, into autonomous robots. The 797B would be the world's largest ground robot. Plans call for the giant robot trucks to be used in production by BHP Billiton, Ltd. mining sites by 2010. For more see the NREC new release. Also see the Wired blog post which notes that getting people who have to work near an autonomous 700 ton robot to trust it may be no easy task.