MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Kodiak Robotics, Inc. has announced that 15 of its fourth-generation, autonomous trucks will be road-ready by the fourth quarter of this year.
According to a company news release, the truck will feature a host of new technological components, including Luminar’s Iris LiDAR, ZF Full Range Radar, Hesai 360-degree scanning LiDARs for side-and rear-view detection, Cummins X15TM Series engines, Bridgestone Americas smart-sensing tire technology and the NVIDIA DRIVE platform.
“Kodiak’s fourth-generation truck features a modular and discreet sensor suite in just three locations: a slim profile ‘center pod’ on the front roofline of the truck, and pods integrated into both of the side mirrors,” the news release stated.
“This well-integrated and low-profile sensor placement vastly simplifies sensor installation and maintenance, and increases safety. The new generation of Kodiak self-driving trucks will improve the robustness of the autonomous system. It was designed with greater fleet uptime, manufacturing, and serviceability in mind–all of which are critical to scale quickly, safely and efficiently.”
Don Burnette, co-founder and CEO of Kodiak Robotics, said that the “complex and bulky systems that require an engineer to hand-build and hand-tune are expensive, unreliable and difficult to debug.”
“We believe that reliability and scalability flow from simplicity, and the best hardware modifications should be barely visible. Our fourth-generation platform is designed for simple, scaled production which means easy calibration, troubleshooting and maintenance for our partners.”
Kodiak has placed an order for an additional 15 PACCAR trucks that will be delivered over the next year. The trucks will more than double the company’s fleet size, according to the news release.
The Trucker News Staff produces engaging content for not only TheTrucker.com, but also The Trucker Newspaper, which has been serving the trucking industry for more than 30 years. With a focus on drivers, the Trucker News Staff aims to provide relevant, objective content pertaining to the trucking segment of the transportation industry. The Trucker News Staff is based in Little Rock, Arkansas.
