Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Daimler Tests a Self-Driving Truck On the Autobahn

Posted by timothy on from the hier-und-da dept.

Engadget reports that Daimler has tested an autonomous truck in one environment guaranteed to put stress on any car: the German Autobahn. While the Mercedes Actros truck was guided with a mix of "radar, a stereo camera array and off-the-shelf systems like adaptive cruise control," there was a human crew on hand, too, just in case. From the article: This doesn't mean you'll see fleets of robotic trucks in the near future. Daimler had to get permission for this run, and the law (whether European or otherwise) still isn't equipped to permit regular autonomous driving of any sort, let alone for giant cargo haulers. Still, this could make a better case for approving some form of self-driving transportation.

5 of 130 comments (clear)

  1. About damn time by Z34107 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The article's a bit short on details, but this is where I expect autonomous driving to take off first--long-haul trucking. Controlled-access highways present fewer complications like pedestrians, four-way stops, and the like, and I imagine automating that would take care of 80% of the driving. Even if you still needed a human driver to reel 'er in at the warehouse gates or even the city limits, it still strikes me as a huge improvement.

    Laws and liability are going to be the biggest limiting factor to commercial deployment, especially if they boil down to "a human must be ready to intervene at any time," but I think there are fudges around that. You could have one human operator in a remote control center "driving" multiple trucks, kind of like a cross between drone pilot and remote ICU monitoring.

    Not that even a human sitting in the seat with hands on the wheel would be likely to intervene effectively should something go wrong after eight hours of idle monotony. But, having a human somewhere supervising in some capacity would soothe the more irrational fears that also serve as part of the reason we still keep human pilots flying planes, while still yielding the benefits that come with automation--self-driving trucks are much less compelling if each one still needs a full-time human driver to comply with laws.

    --
    DATABASE WOW WOW
    1. Re:About damn time by phantomfive · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The article's a bit short on details, but this is where I expect autonomous driving to take off first--long-haul trucking

      Our trains aren't autonomous yet, which seems like a much easier problem to solve.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    2. Re:About damn time by Z34107 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      It's harder than you're probably giving it credit for, especially for miles-long freight trains, where a hill can mean one segment of the train is accelerating while another is decelerating. We're just about there, though, insofar as we have software that automatically drives throttle, brakes, and other controls. Link:

      Norfolk Southern, an American rail operator, now pulls roughly one-sixth of its freight using locomotives equipped with "route optimisation" software. By crunching numbers on a train's weight distribution and a route's curves, grades and speed limits, the software, called Leader, can instruct operators on optimum accelerating and braking to minimise fuel costs. Installing the software and linking it wirelessly to back-office computers is expensive, says Coleman Lawrence, head of the company's 4,000-strong locomotive fleet. But the software cuts costs dramatically, reducing fuel consumption by about 5%. That is a big deal for a firm that spent $1.6 billion on diesel in 2012. Mr Lawrence reckons that by 2016 Norfolk Southern may be pulling half its freight with Leader-upgraded locomotives. A competing system sold by GE, Trip Optimizer, goes further and operates the throttle and brakes automatically.

      --
      DATABASE WOW WOW
  2. Guaranteed to put stress on any car? As if. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    People on the autobahn are generally courteous, signal when changing lanes and so on. I guess you'd have to be at such speeds, but it's also part of the German national character. Furthermore, it's a highway so everyone is driving fast and the velocity differences, which cause most of the danger, are actually rather low most of the time. I think the highway may possibly be the safest and easiest environment for automated driving.

  3. Test It On The Tanks Too. by zenlessyank · · Score: 5, Funny

    German self driving tanks sound like more fun. Maybe some armored drones and, and LASERS!!!!!!