At the ACT Expo in Las Vegas, the firms unveiled their autonomous truck.
Three years after the businesses first declared that they would be working together, Volvo and Aurora have now presented their first production-ready autonomous truck. At the ACT Expo in Las Vegas, they have just demonstrated the Volvo VNL Autonomous truck, which was designed by Aurora, a firm that specializes in autonomous trucking and robotaxis, but will be constructed by Volvo.
Aurora Driver is the engine that drives it. It is a level 4 autonomous driving system that employs imaging radars, high-resolution cameras, a LiDAR sensor that can identify things up to 400 meters away, and numerous more sensors. With the use of Aurora’s technology, billions of virtual miles have been driven for training purposes, in addition to 1.5 million miles driven for commercial purposes on actual public roads. In order to ensure the safety of its passengers and drivers, the truck is equipped with “redundant steering, braking, communication, computation, power management, energy storage, and vehicle motion management systems.”
TechCrunch reports that when the truck begins transporting freight across North America over the next few months, it will still have a human driver behind the wheel who will be able to take control of the vehicle if it encounters a situation that requires it. The journal was informed by a spokeswoman for Aurora that the company will be unveiling trial projects with its customers who intend to employ Volvo’s vehicle at some point in the latter part of this year. Despite the fact that it did not mention any specific businesses, the startup had previously conducted trial operations with FedEx and Uber Freight.
Additionally, the autonomous vehicle firm plans to deploy twenty fully driverless trucks between Dallas and Houston in the near future. However, it is not yet apparent whether this initial fleet of driverless vehicles will consist of trucks manufactured by Volvo or trucks manufactured by the company’s other manufacturing partners. Although the firms did not disclose this information during the Las Vegas event, they did mention that Volvo has already begun production of a test fleet of the VNL Autonomous truck at its assembly facility in New River Valley, which is located in Virginia. In his capacity as President of Volvo Autonomous Solutions, Nils Jaeger referred to this truck as the “first of [the company’s]standardized global autonomous technology platform.” Jaeger went on to say that this will afford Volvo the opportunity “to introduce additional models in the future.”