The Volvo VNL truck includes features for safety, integration, and commercial scale. | Source: Volvo Autonomous Solutions
Volvo Autonomous Solutions this week unveiled its first-ever production-ready autonomous truck. The company debuted the vehicle at the ACT Expo in Las Vegas. The VNS Autonomous truck brings together Volvo’s commercial vehicle expertise with autonomous driving technology from Aurora Innovation Inc., it said.
“We are at the forefront of a new way to transport goods, complementing and enhancing transportation capacity, and thereby enabling trade and societal growth,” stated Nils Jaeger, president of Volvo Autonomous Solutions (VAS). “This truck is the first of our standardized global autonomous technology platform, which will enable us to introduce additional models in the future, bringing autonomy to all Volvo Group truck brands, and to other geographies and use cases.”
Volvo added that the truck is the result of years of research and development into autonomous vehicle technology. The Gothenburg, Sweden-based automaker said the platform-based design approach will enable it to do two things.
The first is to use its virtual driver developed in house for trucks and machines working within confined applications. The second is to partner with virtual driving technologies for on-highway trucking applications.
Chris Urmson, Sterling Anderson, and Drew Bagnell founded Aurora in 2017. Its Aurora Driver is a self-driving system with a common core of hardware and software. The Pittsburgh-based company designed it to adapt to a broad set of vehicle types, from a four-door sedan to a Class 8 semi truck.
Volvo prioritizes safety and integration
Founded in 2020, Volvo Autonomous Solutions said it is addressing the transportation industry’s capacity constraints with safe, sustainable, and efficient autonomous technology. The unit of the Volvo Group offers customers tailored transport as a service (TaaS) with autonomous vehicles, required infrastructure, operational and uptime support, and cloud-based management of logistics flows.
With the Volvo VNL Autonomous truck, VAS said it made every design and engineering decision with safety in mind. This is why the system has redundant steering, braking, communication, computation, power management, energy storage, and vehicle motion management systems.
In addition to safety, Volvo prioritized integrating Aurora’s Driver, an SAE Level 4 system, into the Volvo VNL Autonomous truck. Aurora said its driver is made up of AI software, dual computers, proprietary lidar that can detect more than 400 m (1,312.3 ft.) away, high-resolution cameras, an imaging reader, and additional sensors. These technologies enable the Volvo VNL Autonomous to safely navigate the world around it.
“Powered by the Aurora Driver, the new Volvo VNL Autonomous is the realization of our shared vision,” said Sterling Anderson, co-founder and chief product officer at Aurora, said. “This truck combines Aurora’s industry-leading self-driving technology with Volvo’s best-in-class truck, designed specifically for autonomy, making it a must-have for any transport provider that wants to strengthen and grow their business.”
The Aurora Driver has been trained and tested in Aurora’s virtual suite, where it has driven billions of miles, claimed the company. It also has 1.5 million commercial miles on public roads, where it navigates end-to-end trucking routes. It has driven on highways, rural roadways, and surface streets day and night and in good and bad weather, Aurora said.
Looking to the road ahead
The Volvo VNL Autonomous truck will be assembled at Volvo’s flagship New River Valley (NRV) plant in Dublin, Va. The NRV plant is the largest Volvo Trucks plant in the world. Volvo said its high-volume production experience, combined with stringent autonomous quality processes, will give enable it to produce autonomous trucks to meet industry demand.
In 2023, the U.S. was short 80,000 truck drivers, according to the American Journal of Transportation. This problem will only increase, as the study showed that by 2030, the U.S. will be short 160,000 drivers. Volvo said its autonomous trucks can address this challenge.
“The Volvo VNL Autonomous, powered by the Aurora Driver, offers a fully integrated autonomous solution in the hub-to-hub segment,” said Sasko Cuklev, head of on-road solutions at Volvo Autonomous Solutions. “Our approach reduces complexity for our customers while allowing them to experience the benefits of an autonomous solution with peace of mind by ensuring efficiency, safety, and reliability.”
So is there a human monitoring the trucks remotely in case they encounter something unexpected and just stop?
What if the air hose will pop off? Who will fix it? You will pay mechanic thousands? What if bulb burns down? You will call mechanic and pay thousands again? No person inside… im voting against!