DARPA RACER
DARPA's Robotic Autonomy in Complex Environments with Resiliency program, developing off-road autonomous driving technology; Overland AI co-founders Byron Boots (PI) and Greg Okopal (Co-PI) led this work at the University of Washington before founding the company, and it underlies Overland AI's ULTRA autonomy stack.
RACER (launched 2021) developed autonomy algorithms — not new vehicles or sensors — enabling unmanned ground vehicles to navigate unstructured, unpredictable off-road terrain at speeds limited only by sensor performance, mechanical constraints, and safety, closing the long-standing gap between on-road and off-road military autonomy. The program expanded in a second phase (RACER Heavy Platform and RACER Fleet Vehicles) and concluded in early 2026 after a series of Army/Marine Corps field demonstrations, delivering a platform-agnostic autonomy stack that has since transitioned to commercial spinouts including Overland AI.
Program detail
- Agency
- Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
- Acronym
- RACER
- Budget
- Phase
- Concluded (Jan 2026) — transitioned to commercial spinouts
- Domain
- Off-road autonomous ground-vehicle research
Participants2
- CompanyOverland AISeattle-based builder of ULTRA, an autonomous ground-vehicle platform for off-road military logistics/resupply and ground autonomy.
- CompanyScout AIBuilds Fury, a vision-language-action foundation model turning unmanned ground, air, sea, and space military systems into autonomous agents.
Contracts0
No linked records yet.
Frequently asked
- What is DARPA RACER?
- RACER (launched 2021) developed autonomy algorithms — not new vehicles or sensors — enabling unmanned ground vehicles to navigate unstructured, unpredictable off-road terrain at speeds limited only by sensor performance, mechanical constraints, and safety, closing the long-standing gap between on-road and off-road military autonomy. The program expanded in a second phase (RACER Heavy Platform and RACER Fleet Vehicles) and concluded in early 2026 after a series of Army/Marine Corps field demonstrations, delivering a platform-agnostic autonomy stack that has since transitioned to commercial spinouts including Overland AI.
- Which agency runs DARPA RACER?
- DARPA RACER is run by Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and is also known as RACER.
Sources & citations2
Each claim links to its underlying source. Confidence reflects how directly the source supports the claim.
- 1
Scout AI participated in DARPA's RACER off-road autonomy program alongside Field AI and Overland AI
TechCrunch: Coby Adcock's Scout AI raises $100 million to train models for war. We visited its bootcamp.Verified2026-04-29 - 2
RACER concluded in January 2026 after Army/Marine Corps field demonstrations, having developed a platform-agnostic off-road autonomy stack now transitioning to commercial use including Overland AI.
DARPA: RACER's Finish LineVerified2026-01-14