Volvo and Aurora have unveiled their first production autonomous trucks, three years after the companies initially announced them. join. They just Volvo VNL has demonstrated the Autonomous truckDesigned by autonomous cargo and robot taxi company Aurora, but produced by Volvo at the ACT Expo in Las Vegas.
It is equipped with high-quality cameras, imaging radars, a LiDAR sensor that can detect objects up to 400 meters away, and Aurora Driver, a level 4 autonomous driving system that uses even more sensors. Aurora technology has logged billions of virtual miles for training as well as 1.5 million commercial miles on actual public roads. For safety purposes, the truck has “redundant steering, braking, communication, computing, energy management, energy storage and vehicle traffic management systems.”
according to TechCrunch, when the car starts hauling cargo across North America in the next few months, there will still be a human driver behind the wheel if needed. An Aurora spokesperson told the publication that later this year, Volvo will announce pilot programs with customers who plan to use the truck. No company was named, but the startup has previously run pilot programs with FedEx and Uber Freight.
The autonomous car company also plans to deploy 20 fully self-driving trucks between Dallas and Houston soon, but it’s unclear whether that first fleet of self-driving cars will consist of trucks from Volvo or its other manufacturing partners. Volvo has already begun production of a test fleet of the VNL Autonomous truck at its New River Valley assembly facility in Virginia, the companies said at the Las Vegas event. Nils Jaeger, president of Volvo Autonomous Solutions, called this truck a “first”. [the company’s] a standardized global autonomous technology platform.” Jaeger added that this would allow Volvo to “introduce additional models in the future.”
