The U.S. Army Logistics Innovation Agency (LIA) hosted demonstrations at Fort Lee in Virginia of an MIT-developed prototype unmanned robotic Toyota lift truck capable of locating, lifting, moving and placing palletized supplies within an existing outdoor supply depot. The demonstration included review of the robot’s safety features, sensor capabilities and human-robot interface based on voice and gesture commands.

The 3,000-pound capacity, internal combustion Toyota 8-Series lift truck was modified by researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory to perform embodied speech and gesture understanding; shape estimation (from laser range scanner data); machine vision (from camera data); motion estimation (from GPS, inertial data and wheel odometry encoders); and autonomous mobility and pallet manipulation. Proprietary Controller Area Network (CAN-bus) protocols, provided by Toyota’s 8-Series product engineering team, enabled the MIT team to connect its algorithms directly to the lift truck’s manual and electrical controls.