Technology-enhanced combat vehicles with Transformers-like capabilities, such as “shape-shifting” wheels, autonomous driving and virtual windows, may soon be on the battlefield.

As part of an ongoing program known as Ground X-Vehicle Technologies (GXV-T), the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) recently demonstrated a number of new “disruptive” advancements, including a mechanism integrated into a U.S. military Humvee that transforms a round wheel to a triangular track in a matter of seconds while the vehicle is on the move.

The futuristic function, officially called Reconfigurable Wheel-Track (RWT), is being developed by a team from Carnegie Mellon University’s National Robotics Engineering Center. It was one of many new traversal capabilities exhibited at the U.S. Army’s Aberdeen Test Center in May.
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