Russia Rolls Out Its First Autonomous Road Roller

Russia has unveiled a self-driving road roller capable of laying asphalt and railway tracks without human intervention — a milestone in the country’s push toward fully automated construction equipment.

Russia’s latest leap in autonomous tech isn’t a car or a drone — it’s a hulking road roller that doesn’t need a driver. According to state news agency RIA Novosti, citing Alexey Raykevich, head of GLONASS JSC, the new machine can work entirely on its own, performing tasks from road paving to railway track installation.

An operator can still take control via tablet, pre-programming the number of passes and the width of coverage. From there, the system maps its own route with centimeter-level accuracy. The payoff: faster project completion and precise adherence to engineering standards.

Future upgrades could allow a single operator to control multiple machines at once. Developers stress that the system uses only domestic components, including high-precision positioning services from Roscosmos, Russia’s space agency.

The self-driving roller is part of a broader wave of automation sweeping Russia’s transport and construction sectors. The country already fields driverless taxis, trains, dump trucks, forklifts, and boats used for underwater waste searches. Drones are deployed for weed control, wildfire suppression, and even last-mile delivery to remote areas.

This road roller, though, marks a new frontier — heavy construction equipment built to work without a human behind the wheel. In a nation already experimenting with autonomy across industries, it’s a sign that the future of infrastructure could be almost entirely machine-run.