Startup Firm Unveils Prototype Autonomous Truck
Prototype autonomous truck in Nevada desert. Photo: Embark
“>
Prototype autonomous truck in Nevada desert. Photo: Embark
“>
Yet another startup tech firm has rolled into the autonomous truck arena. San Mateo, Calif.-based Embark publicly revealed its prototype self-driving truck on Feb. 24.
The company, which gained approval from the State of Nevada earlier this year to begin testing its truck on public roads, said its self-driving technology enables a truck “to drive from exit to exit on the freeway without any human input.”
Embark said its tractor-trailer setup uses a combination of radars, cameras and Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) depth sensors “to perceive the world around it.” The data points captured are processed via a form of Artificial Intelligence known as Deep Neural Nets (DNNs) that “allow the truck to learn from its own experience— much like humans learn from practice.”
“Analyzing terabyte upon terabyte of real-world data, Embark’s DNNs have learned how to see through glare, fog and darkness on their own,” said Alex Rodrigues, CEO and co-founder of Embark. “We’ve programmed them with a set of rules to help safely navigate most situations, how to safely learn from the unexpected, and how to apply that experience to new situations going forward.”
Embark’s truck is built specifically for “long, simple stretches of freeway driving between cities, rather than all aspects of driving.”
Like other autonomous truck designs, including the Freightliner Inspiration truck and the Otto (owned by Uber) truck, Embark’s computerized truck is meant to be handed off to a human driver once it heads off the highway, who will then navigate local streets to the destination. “A human driver will still touch every load, but with Embark they’re able to move more loads per day, handing off hundreds of miles of freeway driving to their robot partners,” is how the company put it.
Rodrigues said he was inspired to launch Embark after …Read the rest of this story
