Autonomous trucks on the rise Autonomous trucking startup TuS | Tech for Good

Autonomous trucks on the rise

Autonomous trucking startup TuSimple has completed its first fully-autonomous run on open public roads without a human in the vehicle.

An 80-mile (130 km) run along surface streets and highways between a railyard in Tuscon, Arizona, and a distribution center in Phoenix took 1 hour and 20 minutes.

Unmarked police vehicles followed at about a mile behind the truck in case of an emergency stop. A survey vehicle was operating five miles ahead to look for anomalies. An oversight vehicle followed a half-mile behind. Other than these safety precautions, there was no human intervention.

That creates a milestone for TuSimple, aiming to full-scale its technology by 2024. TuSimple is one of the most well-known autonomous truck startups surpassing a $1 billion valuation since its 2015 launch. The company develops its own proprietary automated vehicle guidance system that uses AI paired with LiDAR, radar, and HD cameras. Currently, TuSimple retrofits the existing Navistar base trucks with its system. It also plans to design semi-trucks specifically for autonomous operations by 2024.

The autonomous truck market is not getting mass attention as the self-driving passenger cars. However, that does not stop its estimated growth from $2.0 billion in 2021 to $4.3 billion by 2026. With the rise of e-commerce, the freight industry faces a lack of freight capacity and an increased demand for truck drivers. Autonomous trucking may be the right solution for that.

Article on TechCrunch

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