Torc Robotics autonomous truck is boring — and that’s the way they like it.
The Daimler Truck subsidiary gave media a chance this week in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to experience its self-driving technology in a Freightliner Cascadia and true to design, it was mostly boring.
In other words, the sensor- and camera-adorned truck had no issues taking a 78,000 lb. load on a nearly hour-long round trip to a pretend hub location, which required negotiating bustling traffic along two highways and surface streets.
One cab attendant sat in the driver’s seat with his hands on the wheel while another sat to his right to help serve as another pair of eyes. Attendants are experienced truck drivers and carefully screened to ensure that they’re up to the task of helping guide along the eventual deployment of a Level IV system that doesn't require attendants, which Torc expects by the end of the decade — or, as their execs and engineers repeatedly said, “when it’s safe.”
While Torc keeps its safety goals and technology pretty close to the vest (photos and video of the truck's interior, the mission control screen and some presentation slides were not permitted), it’s clear that they’re focused on continually acquiring as much data as possible in the ongoing pursuit of safety and efficiency. Critical information not only comes from on-board and remote data systems, it also comes from veteran drivers inside the cab and personnel working back at what Torc calls mission control.
“We think that's really important as much as you see the truck going down the road, all the other aspects of plugging into a freight network, or more elevated jobs of what a dispatcher or driver manager might do today are captured at mission control and a lot of other cool features too,” Torc’s Chief Strategy Officer Andrew Culhane told reporters before the test drives.
