The first three-day commercial cargo flight of a self-propelled refrigerated truck across America has been successfully completed.
The industry’s first commercial self-contained refrigerated truck powered by innovative Plus.ai technology traveled coast to coast in the US, delivering over 40,000 pounds of Land O’Lakes butter to customers.
Plus.ai, a leading provider of self-driving cargo trucking technology, announced that it successfully completed its first coast-to-coast autonomous commercial cargo flight in December 2019. The customer was oil manufacturer Land O’Lakes, Inc.
After traveling 2,800 miles, the Plus4ai L4 autonomous truck made the trip from Tulare, California to Quakertown, Pennsylvania in less than three days. This is the first US commercial flight of a fully loaded perishable refrigerated truck.
The truck was equipped with Plus.ai’s advanced autonomous driving system, which uses multi-modal sensors, deep learning visual algorithms, and simultaneous location and mapping (SLAM) technologies. The trip was a milestone, proving the system’s ability to safely handle a wide range of road conditions, given changing terrain and weather. Equipped with radar, lidar, sensors, cameras and AI-based software, the refrigerated truck traveled autonomously along a 2,800-mile route. But there was still a team on board! The driver controlled the movement at all times (in case you have to take control in an emergency), and the engineer was present to control the operation of the system.
“Delivering cargo for Land O’Lakes has demonstrated the safety, efficiency and sophistication of our technology in an autonomous truck that delivers cargo for other partners several days a week,” said Sean Kerrigan, COO and co-founder of Plus.ai. “Further improvements in autonomous trucks will see these high-speed runs become the norm in the future. We look forward to demonstrating that our technology can deliver impressive results today while still meeting stringent driving safety standards and food safety standards.”
“Autonomous vehicles and other emerging transportation technologies have the potential to completely change commercial freight transport. We are thrilled to be partnering with technology leaders like Plus.ai to help make autonomous trucks a reality for our transportation needs,” commented Yohne Dewberry, Land O’Lakes Chief Supplier.
On a non-stop, three-day cross-country journey, the autonomous Plus.ai truck traveled day and night, passing through the vast plains of Kansas, through the winding roads of the Rocky Mountains, through tunnels and road sections where construction and maintenance work was underway, and climbed to a height of more than 11,000 feet. through rain and snow. The ride of the autonomous truck has been a demonstration of its safety and efficiency that many freight forwarders and customers will appreciate when autonomous trucks are ubiquitous for commercial travel.
Currently, many leading companies are developing in the field of autonomous control.
Daimler and Tesla are also developing self-driving trucks. Uber scaled back its research program in July 2018 to focus on autonomous passenger cars.
Tom Brewls of Oxford University’s Robotics Institute told BBC News that Embark and TuSimple have had similar successes. So, in February 2018, the Embark truck made a five-day trip of 2,400 miles across the United States.According to Tom Breuls, freight transport is relatively easy because the highways travel in the same direction at about the same speed.
“At the moment, only the beginning and end of the journey (off the highway) must be driven by the driver,” he said. “I think autonomous trucking is going to be a big hit in the market, especially in countries like the US or Australia.”
Professor David Bailey of the University of Birmingham Business School commented that the journey from Tulare on the west coast to Quakertown on the east coast was “a pretty big deal”.
He added: “Although over the past few years, many have been excited about the possibility of introducing autonomous driving technologies, but interest in them has declined due to excessive expectations. But it is important to note that investments in new autonomous technologies are paying off, as evidenced by the flight made by a truck with the Plus.ai autonomous driving system.”
Plus.ai does not stand still. In January 2020, Plus.ai announced an autonomous driving system safety test program under which the company will expand testing of its autonomous trucks to cover all continental states in the US by the end of 2020. There will be testing in closed mode, testing on the public road with the participation of the driver and the safety engineer on board. The company is exploring new opportunities and challenging driving scenarios that its autonomous driving system can handle.
“We want to create a technological solution that will be applicable to a wide variety of weather conditions, terrain types and driving scenarios. In order to verify that our trucks are ready for operation, we need to conduct rigorous safety tests on every highway in the country. That’s why we plan to expand the testing program to all states that allow vehicles with autonomous driving systems by the end of this year,” said Sean Kerrigan, COO and co-founder of Plus.ai.
Plus.ai has already tested its autonomous trucks in 17 states, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming.
Plus.ai is the world leader in self-driving truck technology. The company is headquartered in Silicon Valley, with research and development departments in China. The startup was founded in 2016 by a group of serial entrepreneurs and industry veterans with over 20 years of experience in technology and artificial intelligence. Plus.ai specializes in the development and implementation of full driving technology for autonomous commercial vehicles. Plus.ai currently works with leading truck manufacturers, major shippers, and leading construction equipment and commercial vehicle operators in the US and China.
International trucking in Ukraine is successfully carried out by M&M Ukraine (head office in Kiev, subdivision in Boryspil and Odessa) in all promising and demanded world directions. “M&M Ukraine” provides high-quality and safe cargo transportation to European countries.
Based on materials from: www.plus.ai, www.plus.ai, www.transmetrics.eu, www.transmetrics.eu, www.bbc.com, www.bbc.com, and data from open sources.