Scania says its latest demonstration of autonomous vehicle precision highlights how close self-driving truck technology is to wider commercial deployment.
The Swedish manufacturer recently completed a controlled challenge in which two autonomous Scania trucks drove toward each other in synchronized motion, creating a window of less than a second for professional mountain biker Matt Jones to jump through. “It culminated in a world first, as Red Bull athlete Matt Jones successfully jumped between the two self-driving vehicles,” the news release reads.
The challenge, conducted with teams from Red Bull and U.S.-based PlusAI, was designed to showcase the accuracy, software capability and environmental awareness of Scania’s autonomous system. The project involved months of planning, software development and safety checks.
PlusAI, a Silicon Valley automotive technology developer, said in a related release that the challenge required repeatable, sub-decimeter path holding, reliable sensing in dynamic conditions, and real-time prediction to maintain safe and consistent behavior across every rehearsal run.
“When Scania came to us with the challenge, SuperDrive showed why autonomy can do what humans can’t: Create the same precise window, in the same exact spot, every time. Its safety, awareness, and precision made the impossible not just possible, but predictable,” the company said.
“This challenge was a glimpse of what’s possible when breakthrough autonomous technology delivers precision and safety you can count on,” says Peter Hafmar, head of autonomous solutions at Scania,” said Peter Hafmar, Scania’s head of autonomous solutions.
Scania says it believes that autonomy is central to its strategy for improving freight efficiency, lowering operating costs and reducing environmental impact and address driver shortage. In Europe, Scania is conducting supervised hub-to-hub trials with safety drivers in partnership with PlusAI.
According to the company, its in-house engineering expertise combined with PlusAI’s artificial intelligence technology is enabling development of scalable, factory-built autonomous solutions for commercial transport.
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