Polaris Wants Autonomous Vehicles. Likely For Its Army Contracts

A host of companies around the United States take off-the-shelf Polaris side-by-sides, strip them down to their constituent frames, remove all but the most essential drivetrain parts, and then go to town adding autonomous vehicle technology to them so they can then turn around and sell them to the U.S. military and our allies abroad. Why? Because the RZR and MRZR platforms are built to take a hit and keep on trucking. 

And in recent years, those contracts have become ever more lucrative and necessary, as small-war conflicts have become more of the norm, and autonomous vehicles have the real potential to save soldiers on the battlefields of tomorrow and today. Why send in troops to recover the wounded when you can just remotely operate or send an autonomous RZR to pick them up? 

But those companies are outside of Polaris. They're outside the company's defense business, which is absolutely booming. So Polaris ain't seeing the coin that could be going to it had the company actually developed an autonomous MRZR itself. Well, according to some recently uncovered patents that we at RideApart dug up, that all could be changing very soon. 

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Filed by Polaris, and for some reason through the US Patent Office in Australia, the patent's name is "Autonomous Ready Vehicle and Accessory Devices For Such Vehicle."

The patent's abstract states that the present disclosure is for "A vehicle, comprising: a communication interface communicatively coupled to a vehicle controller and a remote controller, the communication interface configured to receive commands from the remote controller and send the received commands to the vehicle controller, wherein the vehicle controller is configured to control the vehicle in three modes, including a remote operating mode in response to the commands received from the remote controller via the communication interface, an autonomous operating mode in an absence of the commands from the remote controller, and a manual operating mode."

Basically, the patent is a communications system that would allow an operator to control a vehicle through a system of controls remotely or through an autonomous program and send the vehicle off into the field. Now, it doesn't state that it's for the military or its MRZR, and Polaris has patented other autonomy-related patents in the past, but given some of the wording contained, and its emphasis on what amounts to command and control modules, i.e., "communication interface communicatively coupled to a vehicle controller and a remote controller, the communication interface configured to receive commands from the remote controller and send the received commands to the vehicle controller, wherein the vehicle controller is configured to control the vehicle in three modes, including a remote operating mode in response to the commands received from the remote controller via the communication interface, an autonomous operating mode in an absence of the commands from the remote controller, and a manual operating mode," that seems far more military-based than your average autonomous parking feature.

And, again, Polaris is losing out on a revenue stream while others use its platform. If it can develop it in-house, it's a win-win for the company. Now, get me an autonomous MRZR with a .50cal strapped to the top ASAP.

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