Aurora Innovation, the self-driving The tech startup founded by Chris Urmson, one of the original engineers behind Google’s Self-Driving Car Project, which eventually became Waymo, plans to launch a service that will provide access to fully automated semi-trucks as early as 2024, the company said this month. .
The service will be called the Aurora Horizon and will initially run between Dallas and Houston. Aurora establishes terminals at each end point where a trailer can be delivered and picked up by a human driver for delivery to its final destination. Autonomous vehicles have been legal on Texas highways since 2017.
Aurora said the service will be fully scalable and will gradually expand to more locations. The company said that since the trucks will be driverless, they can operate around the clock, stopping only for refueling, loading and maintenance. The company gave an example of a trailer being transported between Dallas and Los Angeles in less than 24 hours.
Aurora will offer the service via subscription and said it will provide customers, typically fleet operators, with a more reliable, predictable and cost-effective self-driving service to complement existing teams of human drivers.
The trucks will run Aurora’s own Aurora Driver self-driving system, which consists of both software and hardware systems and will be upgraded over time to make it more robust. Aurora said the system uses road-trained artificial intelligence in virtual tests that expose it to rare scenarios, and new scenarios can be added to the system’s database for continuous improvement.
Aurora Driver is rated Level 4 by the SAE scale of self-driving ability. This means that it can drive independently for longer periods of time under specific conditions, typically within a geofenced area, with sufficient map data. Level 5 is the ultimate goal for a self-driving car to handle the same conditions as a human.
Aurora also plans a robot taxi service called Aurora Connect, which the company currently operates is being developed in cooperation with Toyota.
Aurora is also working with automotive supplier Continental, which will help develop and ultimately supply the Aurora Driver’s next-generation hardware suite, including sensors and computers. Starting in 2027, Continental will integrate these hardware elements into the arrays supplied to Aurora’s vehicle manufacturing partners.
This article was originally published by Motor Authorityeditorial partner ClassicCars.com
