Plus.ai's autonomous truck 'crosses US in three days'

[Zippyjuan]

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-50742080

A Silicon Valley start-up says it has completed the first commercial coast-to-coast journey across America with an autonomous lorry.

Plus.ai said one of its vehicles had hauled a refrigerator trailer full of butter 2,800 miles from California to Pennsylvania in less than three days.

It relied on sensors, cameras, radar and Lidar (light detection and ranging) technology and computer vision software underpinned by artificial intelligence.

But a driver and engineer rode along.

'Big deal'
"This cross-country freight run... shows the safety, efficiency and maturity of our autonomous trucks, which are already delivering freight for other partners several days a week," said co-founder Shawn Kerrigan.

"Continued advances in our autonomous trucks will make it possible for these quick cross-country runs to be the norm in the future."

Prof David Bailey, of the University of Birmingham Business School, said the journey, from Tulare on the west coast to Quakertown on the east coast, was "quite a big deal".

He added: "While many commentators became excited about driverless technologies over the last few years, interest waned after it was over-hyped.

"But it's important to note that the underlying investment in the new autonomous technologies is still ongoing, evidenced by this Plus.ai self-driving truck run."

Autonomous cars
Daimler and Tesla are also developing self-driving lorries.

But Uber scrapped its research programme last July to focus on autonomous cars instead.

Tom Bruls, of the University of Oxford's Robotics Institute, told BBC News Embark and TuSimple had had similar successes.

Embark, for example, completed a 2,400 mile trip across the US last February.

Freight journeys were relatively straightforward as traffic flowed in the same direction at roughly the same speed on highways, Mr Bruls said.

"Only the beginning and end part of the journey (off the highway) have to be done manually for now," he said.

"So I think it is a pretty big market, especially in countries like the US or Australia."

 

[presence]

seems odd, maybe just because I'm an AI dev...

One cannot find a single grocery store willing to accept the risk/liability of 500 pound 5 mph AI controlled shopping cart gathering bots on their parking lots.

Yet the rest of us are supposed to be enthused about 50,000 pound 75 mph AI controlled butter delivery trucks on the state roads which surround us.

 

[Zippyjuan]

seems odd, maybe just because I'm an AI dev...

One cannot find a single grocery store willing to accept the risk/liability of 500 pound 5 mph AI controlled shopping cart gathering bots on their parking lots.

Yet the rest of us are supposed to be enthused about 50,000 pound 75 mph AI controlled butter delivery trucks on the state roads which surround us.

It is far simpler to deal with highway traffic- much fewer turns and fewer potential obstacles like those shopping carts and pedestrians.

 

[VIDEODROME]

Well, I'm a truck driver so this is interesting to me. I'm totally open for any programs that are a path to help me retrain or help to develop this new robot work force. Aside from my own employment interests, I find this interesting because I think in many areas our infrastructure is overwhelmed. How many extra lanes can we add? Self Driving trucks requiring no breaks much help move freight faster and have more flexible schedules.

I guess the truck mentioned in the article would have handled Winter conditions to. Most truckers scoff at the idea of a computer remaining safe when encountering black ice.

As for the drive time, the truck still took the normal mandated breaks. I suppose this is because it did have the backup human crew on board. I think in another interview it was said they switched to manual in a Pennsylvania construction zone only because locals requested it, not because of equipment failure.

I might be that Andrew Yang isn't exaggerating this as an issue as much as people thought. I still think adopting this will be very slow, but the fact that it's happening at all should at least be discussed so I'm kind of glad he qualified for the December debate.

 

[TheTexan]

I'm totally open for any programs that are a path to help me retrain

Ya, I definitely wish there was like a place with totally free and open information available to anyone so I also could learn more valuable skills.

 

[Danke]

 

[Mach]

Those trucks will be digitally hijacked (hacked).

 

[Fox McCloud]

Still not convinced this is anything other than being decades away still.


Completely autonomous airplanes are already possible (up to and including take off and landing) if an airport has the finer grained GPS, but it's still not done because of "just in case". I have a feeling it'll be the same for trucks; this technology will develop and is likely to be included on trucks, but is going to be pitched (and utilized) more as "driver assistance" rather than full autonomous trucks.

The amount of problems self-driving vehicles have for non-standard situations is still high enough as to be concerning---I really don't think it'll be anytime soon that this will become standard practice.

I welcome the transition, but that needs to be tempered by the fact that self-driving vehicles have a very long way to go, yet.

 

[VIDEODROME]

Still not convinced this is anything other than being decades away still.


Completely autonomous airplanes are already possible (up to and including take off and landing) if an airport has the finer grained GPS, but it's still not done because of "just in case". I have a feeling it'll be the same for trucks; this technology will develop and is likely to be included on trucks, but is going to be pitched (and utilized) more as "driver assistance" rather than full autonomous trucks.

The amount of problems self-driving vehicles have for non-standard situations is still high enough as to be concerning---I really don't think it'll be anytime soon that this will become standard practice.

I welcome the transition, but that needs to be tempered by the fact that self-driving vehicles have a very long way to go, yet.

Most complications come from the final arrival and in some cases it's been discussed that humans could do the Final Mile of truck delivery. So, one reason the pilot remains is the plane can't stop to pick them up for the way a truck can. There is also the trust factor with human passengers while trucks just haul cargo.

What I expect is in the next 5 to 10 years Autonomous truck routes will be established in consistent Southern weather away from the snow. It won't be an all or nothing deal, but the southern trucking industry will be affected.

 

[Aratus]

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-50742080

Australia is going to try to recover from the massive fires, yes. That type of truck does require a supervisor,
all it does is take away the ongoing drudgery of being alert, awake and on the road. it reduces crashes...