Other than military applications. Looks like this could have potential for snow-bound vehicles. Ski areas and backcountry in the winter.
Darpa Literally Reinvented the Wheel for Army Combat Vehicles
31–40 of 220 posts
Re: Darpa Literally Reinvented the Wheel for Army Combat Vehicles
#32There’s something deeply poetic to this that DARPA didn’t understand the wisdom in what the “reinvent the wheel” phrase means. This seems to embody every bit of its meaning. Replace rubber tires which are brain dead simple and work very well with zero maintenance with this complicated monstrosity that I have many doubts about even being an improvement.
Reminds me very much of this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tri-star_(wheel_arrangement) which was used in the movie Damnation Alley for their Landmaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landmaster which was quite functional considering it was custom built for the movie. While long,
This video https://youtu.be/ZZYT2nYd46o shows the gang rotate near 40 seconds and at end you can see it used in water (6:33)
Being the scenes on its construction https://youtu.be/26n3RsXNyKE and it still exists as of 2016
Re: Darpa Literally Reinvented the Wheel for Army Combat Vehicles
#33That thing looks like a maintenance nightmare.
And how often do humvees get stuck anyway? I like the product, but it’s obviously wasteful. During the Iraq insurgency what was wanted was armor plating. Literally just 1/4” slabs of steel. This is of a piece with the F-35.
I see the F-35 disinfo put out by the US DoD is still effective.
Re: Darpa Literally Reinvented the Wheel for Army Combat Vehicles
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
You’re not kidding. Maybe the track version is meant to be used only rarely, when the vehicle is truly stuck. So you’re either wasting time digging yourself out with a shovel and saving on maintenance, or you switch to tracks to get out of the ditch and then perform maintenance right after you get back to the base. So long as maintenance is not deferred it seems preferable to do the latter.
Probably for special purpose vehicles not as a replacement for wheels on Humvees / Landy's
This. Humvees are probably just what's readily available as a test platform.
If such a wheel/track is ever used for real, it might be on something very different, and not on the front lines. And possibly larger or smaller than this.
Re: Darpa Literally Reinvented the Wheel for Army Combat Vehicles
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
And how often do humvees get stuck anyway? I like the product, but it’s obviously wasteful. During the Iraq insurgency what was wanted was armor plating. Literally just 1/4” slabs of steel. This is of a piece with the F-35.
Humvees get stuck a lot! The US donated (I’m sure with wink wink strings attached) to us, Slovenia, some years ago and it was quickly found that they are too large and cumbersome for our foresty mountanous terrain. They’d get stuck all the time on tiny roads or between trees. I think these days they’re used for paraded to show we have them but day to day the military keeps using their trusti Puchs from who knows when…
US is not fighting in areas where getting stuck between trees is a big issue.
Re: Darpa Literally Reinvented the Wheel for Army Combat Vehicles
#36Other than military applications. Looks like this could have potential for snow-bound vehicles. Ski areas and backcountry in the winter.
Definitely. The concept was commercialized years ago. E.g. http://www.zonepowertrack.com/en
Re: Darpa Literally Reinvented the Wheel for Army Combat Vehicles
#37This design was actually developed by Carnegie Mellon's National Robotics Engineering Center in partnership with DARPA.
Re: Darpa Literally Reinvented the Wheel for Army Combat Vehicles
#38Re: Darpa Literally Reinvented the Wheel for Army Combat Vehicles
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
The contact patch goes from ~ 1 sqft/tire to ~3-4 sqft/tire. That's pretty significant.
Still if that 3-4ft^2 is in the air it's useless. This doesn't stop high centering or driving into a ditch.
It does help with traction, though. That's an improvement over tires.
However I wonder why they accept the complexity/reliability problems I assume come with this solution instead of going with added (engageable on demand) tracks.
Re: Darpa Literally Reinvented the Wheel for Army Combat Vehicles
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
Humvees get stuck a lot! The US donated (I’m sure with wink wink strings attached) to us, Slovenia, some years ago and it was quickly found that they are too large and cumbersome for our foresty mountanous terrain. They’d get stuck all the time on tiny roads or between trees. I think these days they’re used for paraded to show we have them but day to day the military keeps using their trusti Puchs from who knows when…
US is not fighting in areas where getting stuck between trees is a big issue.
Except maybe the western European nations like Germany. But it may be that Germany has had USAEUR there long enough so that they have cut wider roads in their forests for military vehicles. I was stationed there when they were introduced to the theater in the 80's and they didn't have any significant problems.