THE automation of driving is proceeding apace—to the point where
some American states now allow robot vehicles (with human
drivers on board in case anything goes wrong) to be tested on
public roads. But armies, too, are interested in automatic
automobiles. Anything that preserves soldiers’ lives is welcome,
and that is particularly so when they might lose those lives not
in the heat of battle but in the humdrum business of delivering
supplies.  Military drivers, though, have to deal with problems
beyond those that make civilian driving hazardous. The average
commute or school-run, even in the most dangerous parts of an
American city, is rarely subject to booby traps, ambuscades or
attack by rocket-propelled grenades. Nor, despite the macho,
four-wheel-driveness of suburban sports-utility vehicles, do
most such trucks spend much time off-road in the way that an
army truck is likely to. The problem of automating military
vehicles, then, is a hard one. But Oshkosh Defense, a firm based
in Wisconsin, is having a