Aurora's Self-Driving Trucks Are Now Driving At Night (freightwaves.com) 34
Aurora Innovation has expanded its autonomous trucking operations with nighttime driverless runs between Dallas and Houston and a new Phoenix terminal. "Efficiency, uptime, and reliability are important for our customers, and Aurora is showing we can deliver," said Chris Urmson, co-founder and CEO of Aurora, in a press release. "Just three months after launch, we're running driverless operations day and night and we've expanded our terminal network to Phoenix. Our rapid progress is beginning to unlock the full value of self-driving trucks for our customers, which has the potential to transform the trillion-dollar trucking industry." FreightWaves reports: The expansion allows for continuous utilization, shortening delivery times and serving as part of its path to autonomous trucking profitability. Aurora notes that the unlocking of nighttime autonomous operations can also improve road safety. It cited a 2021 Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration report on large truck and bus crashes that noted a disproportionate 37% of fatal crashes involving large trucks occurred at night. This comes despite trucks traveling fewer miles during those hours.
Aurora's SAE L4 autonomous driving system, called the Aurora Driver, can detect objects in the dark more than 450 meters away via its proprietary, long-range FirstLight Lidar. The lidar can identify pedestrians, vehicles, and debris up to 11 seconds sooner than a traditional driver, according to the company. In addition to the fleet and operations expansion, the new terminal in Phoenix, which opened in June, is part of an infrastructure-light approach. Aurora notes this design will closely resemble how the company plans to integrate with future customer endpoints, optimized for speed to market.
This expansion of the more than 15-hour Fort Worth to Phoenix route opens up opportunities to showcase the autonomous truck's ability to cut transit time in half compared to a single driver, who is limited to the 11-hour hours-of-service limitation. Aurora is piloting the autonomous trucking Phoenix lane with two customers, Hirschbach and Werner.
Aurora's SAE L4 autonomous driving system, called the Aurora Driver, can detect objects in the dark more than 450 meters away via its proprietary, long-range FirstLight Lidar. The lidar can identify pedestrians, vehicles, and debris up to 11 seconds sooner than a traditional driver, according to the company. In addition to the fleet and operations expansion, the new terminal in Phoenix, which opened in June, is part of an infrastructure-light approach. Aurora notes this design will closely resemble how the company plans to integrate with future customer endpoints, optimized for speed to market.
This expansion of the more than 15-hour Fort Worth to Phoenix route opens up opportunities to showcase the autonomous truck's ability to cut transit time in half compared to a single driver, who is limited to the 11-hour hours-of-service limitation. Aurora is piloting the autonomous trucking Phoenix lane with two customers, Hirschbach and Werner.
Teamsters (Score:2)
Re: Teamsters (Score:2)
Need Clear identification (Score:2)
Driverless vehicles need to be clearly identified while on the road.
I fully expect them to eventually assemble into 5 mile long convoys.
Re:Teamsters (Score:4, Funny)
Wonder what the truckers unions think about this?
My state's response: What are those 'unions' you speak of?
It's bad enough people get experimented on (Score:3)
Not that it matters. We aren't really a democracy anymore after all so nobody gets to say in anything except maybe to pick who we're going to beat the shit out of this week for no good reason.
Re:It's bad enough people get experimented on (Score:5, Interesting)
Self-driving vehicles aren't perfect, but that isn't a reasonable standard.
What matters is that they have a better safety record than human drivers.
These trucks are even safer than other SDVs because they're driving fixed routes that have been mapped, with every sign and marker in the database.
They're also safer than human drivers because they drive slower. Human-driven trucks usually drive the speed limit, which is 75 mph on the Texas portion of I-45. A self-driving truck will go slower to minimize fuel consumption, so 55 mph. A truck going 75 has nearly twice the kinetic energy.
Re: It's bad enough people get experimented on (Score:2)
A self-driving truck will go slower to minimize fuel consumption, so 55 mph.
Sounds like bullshit to me, where you seeing this?
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One minor note...*all* of I-45 is in Texas, starting in Galveston and ending in Dallas.
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They're also safer than human drivers because they drive slower. Human-driven trucks usually drive the speed limit, which is 75 mph on the Texas portion of I-45. A self-driving truck will go slower to minimize fuel consumption, so 55 mph. A truck going 75 has nearly twice the kinetic energy.
And also because when the signage on the long uphill grade clearly requires that trucks must keep to the right lane, the robot ruck that can climb at eleven miles an hour won't tie up miles of traffic vainly trying to pass a truck doing 10.99 mph.
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Shame they seem to be fossil trucks though. Maybe they are working on autonomous charging too. We have had wireless high power, low loss charging in Europe for a while. All it needs to do is park in the right place, and of course the parking area can have lots of assistive markers to make that easier.
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Self-driving vehicles aren't perfect, but that isn't a reasonable standard.
What matters is that they have a better safety record than human drivers.
These trucks are even safer than other SDVs because they're driving fixed routes that have been mapped, with every sign and marker in the database.
They're also safer than human drivers because they drive slower. Human-driven trucks usually drive the speed limit, which is 75 mph on the Texas portion of I-45. A self-driving truck will go slower to minimize fuel consumption, so 55 mph. A truck going 75 has nearly twice the kinetic energy.
And along with drunk driving, nighttime driving is one of the most significant factors in vehicle accidents and fatalities. Visibility, unusual sleep patterns, and tiredness are challenges. So, the humans being compared to are a relatively low bar.
Humans also have emotions. They want to get to someplace faster, leading to driving faster, passing other vehicles, racing yellow lights, etc. This is even worse when human drivers get "stuck" behind slower vehicles. Computers don't have these challenge.
Re:It's bad enough people get experimented on (Score:5, Interesting)
I think the trucks are operating almost exclusively on interstate and on a fixed route aren't they?
I have a lot more confidence in self-driving semi's used by business than I do with self-driving cars that are sold to individual consumers. Businesses are going to buy and use them based on their performance. The individual consumer will buy and use them based on whatever emotional appeal the marketing creates.
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What a load of unhinged bullshit
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
With those self-driving SUVs but you've got the semi trucks and those things can easily kill and they can kill a lot.
Not that it matters. We aren't really a democracy anymore after all so nobody gets to say in anything except maybe to pick who we're going to beat the shit out of this week for no good reason.
Democracy includes creating a set of rules for folks to be treated fairly. If Aurora has demonstrated the safety of their vehicles to a sufficient degree then I'm fine with them using them.
Re:It's bad enough people get experimented on (Score:4, Interesting)
I would much rather encounter an Aurora truck on the highway, than a human-driven truck that's been on the road for 11 hours straight. And for me, that's a real possibility, since I frequently drive on I-45.
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With those self-driving SUVs but you've got the semi trucks and those things can easily kill and they can kill a lot.
My friend's cousin got rear-ended by a semi truck that didn't see the red light at the end of the off-ramp, or the car that was stopped at it. He was instantly killed, his car was crushed like a can.
It turned out the semi's driver had been on the road for 14 hours straight, and was not, shall we say, in a fully lucid state.
Would a self-driving truck have avoided this death? It's hard to say for sure, but we can probably at least say that its cognitive abilities wouldn't degrade over the course of a long d
Always One Question (Score:2)
Always one question pops to mind about driverless trucks. Will they still change lanes without looking?
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Maybe you're joking...but driverless trucks are always looking around them, all 360 degrees at once. So no, they won't.
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Tesla cars have nine external cameras.
These trucks have twelve.
They have far better visibility than a human driver.
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More importantly these trucks have Lidar. It has proven essential for safe self driving systems. Cameras alone are inadequate.
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More importantly these trucks have Lidar. It has proven essential for safe self driving systems. Cameras alone are inadequate.
I'd go a little further, and say that any single sensor technology alone is inadequate, due to the amount of damage that occur after an unmitigated sensor failure. Multiple sensor technologies should be active at once, so that if (when!) any one type of sensor gets fooled, the others can override it and nobody dies.
Yes, but ... (Score:2)
the Aurora Driver, can detect objects in the dark more than 450 meters away
I know where all the hobos hang out and I'm prepared for this kind of stupid shit. Same thing near bicycle trails. Are the trucks that smart?
Re:Yes, but ... (Score:5, Informative)
If a pedestrian steps onto the roadway 15 yards in front of a *human-driven* truck, it still won't go well for the pedestrian. There is nothing about that scenario that is unique to self-driving trucks.
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I'd imagine that they aren't turning off all the lights on the truck, so somebody looking should easily see it coming from more than 450 meters away, because the distance to SEE a light emitting object is drastically further than the distance you can see non-emitting objects illuminated by light you're emitting yourself.
Looking, the trucks seem to have all the standard lights.
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But even if they step out of the landscaping strip in the median 15 yards in front of the truck?
Stopping distance for a fully loaded semi at 55 miles per hour is 133 yards. If you step out in front of that truck 15 yards ahead, there's nothing the truck can do about it -- well, it could try to swerve, but it's anyone guess whether that would help or just makes things worse.
Aurora is showing we can deliver (Score:2)
I mean it would be kinda useless otherwise...
When happens when 2 trucks (Score:2)
...with those Satan-horn things pass by each other and knocks one kilter? Does it get confused and careen into a housing tract? The clearance looks small.
Rail? (Score:3)
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Creating new rail corridors is very expensive. It's not like when the original lines were laid down and we can just upgrade their paths. There are right of way issues that would displace millions these days.
But yes, rail is ideal where it is available. That's why we have a multi-modal delivery infrastructure.
What we will eventually see are convoys or "road trains" of many trucks heading down the interstate; possibly, but not necessarily, with one human in the first rig. They will then be broken up as th
"driverless" or driverless? (Score:2)
In May they put observers in their driverless trucks a couple days after removing the safety drivers.