ARLINGTON, Va. — DARPA — the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency — is reinventing the wheel…with help from a team of engineers from Carnegie Mellon University.
Known for its share of amazing tech over the years, DARPA's latest development is the Reconfigurable Wheel Track (RWT), a shape-shifting wheel-track mechanism that can transition from a round wheel to a triangular track and back again while the vehicle is on the move.
The RWT allows a vehicle operator to transform a round wheel into a triangular track for greater traction when the terrain demands it, such as when traveling over snow, ice or serious mud.
A team from Carnegie Mellon's National Robotics Engineering Center demonstrated the RWT concept recently at DARPA's test facility near Arlington, showing its potential for on-the-fly improvements to tactical mobility and maneuverability on diverse terrains, DARPA said.
