Aurora has quietly marked a major milestone in the race to commercialize the autonomous vehicle, starting a fully unmanned truck service that has already recorded more than 1,200 miles on public highways in Texas.
18-Company rails have closed frozen pastries while operating without a man in the taxi along an interstate 45 stretch between Dallas and Houston, marking a turning point for both the goods and the future of automated transport.
Aurora’s departure on April 27 followed four years on the road test with security drivers and the completion of a “security case” rigorously-a evidence-based analysis used to justify the readiness of the system for public placement, according to.
Since then, the company says its Aurora driver system has completed more than 1,200 miles fully autonomous with Uber Freight and Hirschbach Lines Motor partners.
“This was a surreal moment,” Aurora Chris Urmson’s CEO and CEO, who boarded the rear seat during inaugural round trip, in a blog entry.
“I am navigating the highway at 65 miles per hour, not behind the wheel, but in the back seat, seeing the landscape unfolding while a load of premium trucks are driven by the technology I helped create … and yet, everything is boring. This is exactly the way it should be.”
Urmson, a former Google Self-Driving Car project leader, said Aurora trucks are equipped with a 360 degree sensor suite capable of detecting objects from to 1,000 meters away.
The system is created to drive carefully, obeying the specifications, avoiding aggressive manuvera and using air burst to keep sensors clear in the rain.
Right now, vehicles only operate during the day hours and in good weather, though Aurora aims to expand the roads in El Paso and Phoenix by the end of 2025.
However, rapid participation has raised alarms between security experts, labor lawyers and even experienced trucks.
“My beginner opinion is: It’s scary,” Angela Griffin, a veteran driver who has experienced in the forefront of how the weather and construction areas can confuse even human drivers, told Times.
“I don’t see how a driverless truck would have been able to read and get to know three that were immediate.”
The regulatory supervision of autonomous trucks remains limited.
The Federal Administration of Transport Transportation of the Department of Transport has not yet issued comprehensive roles specific for automated transport, although it says it is actively “functioning” with the state government and stakeholders of the industry to modernize security protocols.
Some experts worry that states like Texas – which welcomes innovation with fewer restrictions – can become the basis of testing for endless technology.
“There is still no demand for independent controls and balances,” told Times Philip Koopman, an autonomous vehicle safety researcher at Carnegie Mellon University.
“Aurora is more careful than most, but the regulatory structure is simply not there.”
Despite these concerns, some industry veterans believe that automation can eventually make the routes safest.
“I think the growth of jobs will exceed the addition of autonomous trucks,” said Gary Buchs, a tall driver who now supports autonomous technologies.
“Young people want jobs to be changed.”
Aurora insists that its technology is not designed to replace human executives, but to meet the requirement to search for goods and address work shortages.
“It’s a noble job,” Urmson said. “That said, people don’t especially want to do it anymore.”
With only two trucks currently running without a driver and with a temporarily restoring observer in the participation of the truck-rake manufacturer-it is still in the early stages.
The company plans at least 20 trucks this year.
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