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A few days ago Freightliner, invited us to the Nevada desert to witness the reveal of something historic, something that was billed as a gamechanger in the commercial transportation industry. Along with parent company Daimler, Freightliner had developed two prototypes of the first licensed autonomous commercial trucks to operate on public highways.
Dubbed the Inspiration Truck, the prototypes were first shown to hundreds of members from the media, industry and government in a ceremony attended by the governor of Nevada, Brian Sandoval, where the still-camouflaged truck received the first Nevada license plates created for autonomous vehicles, allowing the trucks to operate on roads within the state in autonomous mode. The full debut of the truck took place later that night at the Hoover Dam, with the completely revealed truck emerging at the top of the hill overlooking the dam, and making its way down a road to the bridge topping the dam as helicopters buzzed overhead and a video projection system played a specially created short film on the gigantic surface of the dam itself. We're pretty sure the whole presentation was visible from orbit.
As the truck made its way to the center of the dam bridge, we wouldn't have been surprised if it had suddenly transformed into Optimus Prime or if Iron Man (or at least RoboCop, the old Peter Weller one, not the new one) emerged from the cab of the truck as spotlights from the mountains around the Hoover Dam lit up the truck from hundreds of yards away.
But who did emerge on the observation deck of the dam was "Top Gear" host Rutledge Wood, who along with Dr. Wolfgang Bernhard, member of the board of management of Daimler AG and Martin Daum, president and CEO of Daimler Trucks North America, introduced the truck to the crowd.
The surface of the Hoover Dam became a giant screen during the Inspiration Truck's reveal Photo by Jay Ramey"Freightliner Trucks has been setting the standard for commercial vehicle design and technology for nearly 75 years," said Daum. "Whether it was the first all-aluminum cab introduced in 1942 or the current industry-leading Freightliner Cascadia Evolution, we are inspired by meeting the challenges faced by our customers."
The Freightliner Inspiration Truck is effectively a Level 3 autonomous vehicle, allowing the driver to give full control of safety-critical functions under certain traffic and environmental conditions. That means it can stay in a selected lane, stop or slow down when traffic conditions call for it and maintain a preset distance from other vehicles in its lane. The suite of autonomous systems in the Inspiration Truck is called Highway Pilot. A Level 4 vehicle, on the NHTSA scale, would be capable of full self-driving automation and only require the driver to select routes, while a Level 2 vehicle on that scale is one that features two primary control functions that help the driver, such as active lane-keeping assist and adaptive cruise control. The Inspiration Truck, therefore, may be viewed as a stepping stone between these two levels of autonomy.
Highway Pilot functions much in the same manner as autopilot on a commercial jetliner. Once the vehicle reaches a cruising altitude -- in our case, the interstate -- the driver can hand over controls to the truck and cruise at a preset speed. The truck's autonomous systems rely on radar and cameras to stay in lane and to maintain a safe following distance from the vehicles ahead, with the cameras essentially reading the lane markings to steer the truck. The system notifies the driver when conditions permit autonomous mode to be used, and with a press of a couple buttons on the touchscreen the driver can set the countdown to the handover. Which happens without any drama whatsoever.
One minute we're sitting beside one of the Freightliner engineers and chatting as we're driving just a few miles from Las Vegas city limits, and another minute the truck is driving itself, with the steering wheel moving just a few fractions of an inch every few seconds in either direction on the mostly straight interstate.
A Freightliner engineer explains the functions of the Inspiration Truck as we roll along in autonomous mode. Photo by Jay Ramey Even in this advanced experimental form, there are still a few limitations to the Highway Pilot. In autonomous mode, the truck cannot change lanes, cannot read road signage, and cannot read and react to traffic lights. Its ability to detect what we'll call rapidly unfolding situations up ahead and on each side is also fairly limited, meaning that the most the truck can react to is a rapid deceleration of vehicles ahead of it, in which case it alerts the driver via an audible alarm and disengages from autonomous mode. This rules out a dynamic response to an accident that could be in the process of unfolding in another lane, but which at that point in time has not yet entered the truck's path but most certainly will in another second or two. Similarly, a herd of buffalo heading in a direction perpendicular to the truck's line of sight will be similarly ignored. That may sound like a far-fetched scenario, but there is a reason we weren't driving on any state roads with intersections with nothing but stop signs to direct the flow of traffic -- the Highway Pilot system wouldn't be able to interact with objects in that environment even if all the other requirements for autonomous driving mode are met.
In addition, Freightliner has not tested the Highway Pilot autonomous feature during the rain, at night, or in weather and light conditions other than a bright, clear day in relatively light traffic. This means that for now, the capabilities of the prototype are limited, and even though the truck could work in autonomous mode in the dusk or dawn hours, a full-on thunderstorm on a road with poor lane markings just isn't in the cards.
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A large number of elements like regulation still have to fall into place before you'll see Level 3 autonomous trucks on the roads. Photo by Daimler Barriers other than technological ones also exist when it comes even to the testing of autonomous trucks on U.S. roads. Right now, a grand total of five states (including Nevada) allow auto manufacturers to test vehicles with various autonomous features on state roads. But for trucking companies that actually operate trucks, a large number of states would have to have legislation in place allowing trucks with autonomous features to use their roads for commercial, not just testing, purposes. After all, 18-wheelers typically do not stay inside a single state for more than a day or two, depending on the size of the state, and a jurisdiction that disallows trucks with autonomous driving systems or allows a very limited range of how they could be used would present headaches to the drivers and companies who operate the trucks. As we have all learned in civics class, each state can and does hold radically different views on just about everything, and can often take a contrary position on an issue of its neighbors. Getting state and federal legislation in place when it comes to the commercial use of trucks with autonomous driving features may in fact be more difficult than the technological barriers that still have to be overcome.
Another non-technological barrier that has to be overcome is one of demand, and that's a tricky thing in itself. Aerospace manufacturers typically do not start fielding a particular plane unless a large-enough number of airlines agree to purchase them. It's the same with trucks, even though in this case we're talking about technologies than can be adapted to work on vehicles that already exist -- at the end of the day, we're talking about trucks that just happen to wear a lot of sensors on their body and coordinate them with controls. Truck operators, and not just a dozen small companies that operate within a handful of states, have to be on board with the use of autonomous driving technologies for there to be a business case.
The cab controls of the Inspiration Truck are sparse and futuristic. Photo by Jay Ramey Finally, there is the issue of truck driver and motorist acceptance. Should we welcome our new autonomous truck overlords? Most of us have no qualms about autopilot systems in airplanes assuming the flight controls for hours on end -- more than 10 hours on the most painful flights to Australasia -- and assuming the responsibility for hundreds of lives. What's wrong with a truck cruising on autopilot all the way out in the middle of nowhere? Public acceptance of autonomous vehicles, from Google cars to larger vehicles, is being gauged just now, as tech companies and automakers are fielding the very first prototypes with varying levels of autonomous features.
Freightliner isn't trying to get the driver out of the picture -- the company does not envision completely autonomous drone trucks anytime soon, or at any visible point in the future. Rather, Freightliner sees autonomous trucks as easing the workload for the driver and allowing him or her to schedule upcoming trips, communicate with customers via videophone, or simply watch cat videos on YouTube. And the company does not refer to its prototypes or their technologies as being "driverless," a term which has crept into our vocabulary over the past several years.
"Freightliner Trucks does more than any other commercial truck manufacturer to integrate the truck, the driver and the business. The Freightliner Inspiration Truck is a case in point because it is not a driverless truck -- the driver is a key part of a collaborative vehicle system," said Richard Howard, senior vice president, sales and marketing, DTNA. "With the Freightliner Inspiration Truck, drivers can optimize their time on the road while also handling other important logistical tasks, from scheduling to routing. The autonomous vehicle technology not only contributes to improved safety and efficiency, but allows for improved communication through connectivity and integration."
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Aerodynamic elements might make it on to production trucks before any autonomous features do. Photo by Jay Ramey When might we see the Inspiration Truck in action? That's one thing Daimler and Freightliner did not attempt to set a timetable for, perhaps as much for not wanting to set a deadline for themselves in front of hundreds of journalists who will hold them to it and even create a countdown clock, as so many things have to fall into place before companies field commercial trucks with Level 3 autonomy features. What is clear is that we're not talking about two years from now or even five years from now. Autopilot systems for trucks similar to that offered by the Inspiration Truck prototypes are still a decade or two away from commercial adoption, many in the industry including Freightliner and Daimler executives have indicated.
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Featured GalleryFreightliner Inspiration Truck
