05/04/12 — Mary Cummings, a professor of aeronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was interviewed today at Wired's Disruptive by Design conference in New York, where she offered her views on the state of the art in autonomous vehicles. The work of Google and automakers has shown how cars can drive themselves in some situations. And many commercial flights are already fly-by-wire, allowing pilots to monitor the plane for when something wrong happens, rather than actively take off, fly, and land. Now the technology is advancing to the point where more autonomy is available -- if people become comfortable with it.…

06/24/10 — The Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory worked closely with Virginia Tech and TORC in the creation of the four Ground Unmanned Support Surrogates (GUSS) that will be used for their ability to support a platoon of U.S. Marines. Four unmanned autonomous vehicles designed and built by a team of engineering students at Virginia Tech using the TORC Robotic Building Blocks product line, will participate in the 2010 Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) war games in July, 2010. Fourteen nations, 34 ships, five submarines, more than 100 aircraft, and 20,000 personnel will participate in the biennial RIMPAC exercise June 23 through Aug.…