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Video by Tom Shortridge

RACER's Finish Line

DARPA

Jan. 14, 2026 | 3:11

After years of aggressive testing and pushing the envelope with U.S. Army and Marine Corps partners, the Robotic Autonomy in Complex Environments with Resiliency (RACER) program approaches its conclusion. But the impact of RACER will reverberate far beyond the program's official end date, leaving a legacy of robust autonomous capabilities ready to transform military operations and inspire a new wave of private sector investment. RACER was never about building a single, specialized vehicle. Instead, DARPA aimed to develop an autonomy "stack" -- a collection of algorithms, datasets, and neural network models -- that could be deployed on any ground vehicle. Fast forward from when the program first began in 2021, users can now apply the RACER stack to any vehicle (equipped with appropriate sensors), turning it into an autonomous machine capable of operating in challenging off-road environments, independent of GPS or pre-mapped routes, and at mission-relevant speeds. Learn more: https://www.darpa.mil/research/programs/robotic-autonomy-in-complex-environments-with-resiliency

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