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independent trucking inauguration Kodiak Robotics revealed Tuesday atCES 2024a semi - hand truck that laminitis Don Burnette says is the linchpin in its plan to plunge commercial driverless operations this year .
This is n’t just any with child rig . Packed inside this sixth - generation semi truck are two — and sometimes three — of every mechanically skillful component that is decisive for safe trading operations , admit braking , steering , sensors and computers . Those redundant systems are there as a backup in showcase anything were to fail while its ego - driving hand truck barrel down a highway without a driver behind the wheel .
“ From a safety view , we do not believe that is creditworthy to put a driverless hand truck on the road that does n’t have proper redundancy across the platform , meaning the literal chassis of the vehicle , like the existent truck itself , ” Burnette told TechCrunch .
The stakes are high for Kodiak , a VC - endorse inauguration that has pull off to survive a turbulent period of consolidation in the autonomous fomite industry . The unconscious process of design , developing and test autonomous vehicle engineering science is high-priced and has led to the failure of dozens of startups . And that ’s just the start . Even those AV startups that manage to detain alive long enough to launch commercially can abruptly disappear — or see operations essentially cease , like Cruise — from one crash or incident that view as the ego - drive car or truck unsafe .
The semi - truck ’s redundant features , which were break and design by Kodiak and built by a contract manufacturer , including three pasture brake actuators on its arrangement steering and two steering scheme as well as a backup man king system for all of the computers , sensors , actuators and other electrical systems on the truck . Kodiak also designed its own compute organization and added two of them . Redundant LTE communications links were added as well to ensure Kodiak employee at the company ’s command centers in Lancaster , Texas and Mountain View , California can always be in contact with the truck .
Put together , Burnette suppose the semitrailer - truck has all the right redundancies in place to safely be used on highways .
Other improvement have been made on the hand truck , including the hardware that houses the detector , upgrades to the sensing element themselves and microphones to discover hand brake fomite or other sounds that could be a hazard . In sum , the Kodiak driverless - ready truck features 12 camera , four lidar detector and six radar sensors .
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On the compute side , the semifinal - truck now has twice the GPU processor cores , 1.6x greater processing upper , three times more memory and 2.75 times greater bandwidth to bleed software cognitive operation liken to Kodiak ’s first - propagation truck , according to the company . Kodiak supply special - bright hazard lights designed to comply with the self-reliant trucking diligence ’s software for an exemption to Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Regulations , which necessitate traditional truck number one wood to place warning devices on a roadway after a breakdown . These lights will be used to alarm other driver to the presence of a truck on the side of the road , pending Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration approval .
The resultant , which was bear from Kodiak’sfive twelvemonth of testingthat included carrying 5,000 loads over more than 2.5 million mile , is a truck project to be produce in the grand , grant to Burnette .
“ achiever for a company like Kodiak does n’t reckon on the 10- to 20 - twelvemonth outlook of dominating the transportation mart , ” Burnette explained . “ If we could put 1,000 self - tug driverless trucks in full commercial-grade operation on the road , Kodiak would be wildly successful already . And that ’s not to say we would barricade there . ”
And Kodiak does n’t design to . But for now , Burnette ’s objective is to utilize this new truck for Kodiak ’s driverless operations , which it plans to initiate between Dallas and Houston in 2024 .
Kodiak has taken a unlike road to commercial-grade ego - driving hand truck operations than its peers , companies like Aurora and Torc . The system — that includes all of the redundant hardware and software organisation — is not tied to one producer . It ’s “ motortruck manufacturing business agnostic , ” which Burnette says , “ allows the inauguration to move tight while keep open safety at the forefront . ”
Aurora , for instance , is working with automotive provider Continental to sight produce autonomous fomite computer hardware for commercial-grade self - motor trucks . Aurora and Continental latterly passed their own milestone and finalized the design of its hardware outfit . Continental can now get to work on get prototypes ahead of its plan tobegin production in 2027 . The software and hardware kit will then be integrated onto a fleet of truck for testing . Aurora is also partnered with truck shaper Paccar and Volvo Group .
Burnette said it took this motortruck - agnostic overture to hasten the launch of commercial-grade operations .
“ While I totally agree that in the long rivulet , these vehicle are move to come from the OEMs , the OEMs are not ready today , ” he enounce . “ I doubt we ’re proceed to see OEM production vehicle in 2025 . The question is when are they going to follow ? Nobody really knows for trusted . What I can tell apart you is we can build these hand truck which are driverless - ready in 2024 . So that is a huge advantage . ”
Kodiak will now commence the unconscious process of incorporate the software into the new trucks , testing and validate them for public roads . The company plan to drive its first driverless international nautical mile in 2024 and be quick forcommercial deploymentin 2025 .
“ And then we ’ll drive our first driverless mile — one mile , 10 miles , 50 miles , 100 miles , 1,000 miles etc . , ” Burnette said . “ And it will continue to grow like it has for Cruise and Waymo and others . They all started with their very first drive around the block , and then they deployed a fleet and it raise from there . Ours is going to grow as well . And our goal is to have these trucks commercially ready to hand to our partner toter in 2025 . ”
