GREENSBORO, N.C. — Volvo Autonomous Solutions has unveiled the company’s first-ever production-ready autonomous truck at the ACT Expo in Las Vegas.
“We are at the forefront of a new way to transport goods, complementing and enhancing transportation capacity, and thereby enabling trade and societal growth,” said Nils Jaeger, president of Volvo Autonomous Solutions. “This truck is the first of our standardized global autonomous technology platform, which will enable us to introduce additional models in the future, bringing autonomy to all Volvo Group truck brands and to other geographies and use cases.”
Volvo officials say the platform-based design approach will enable them to use their in-house-developed virtual driver for trucks and machines working within confined applications and partner virtual driving technologies for on-highway trucking applications.
“Our platform engineering approach prioritizes safety by incorporating high-assurance redundancy systems designed to mitigate potential emergency situations,” said Shahrukh Kazmi, chief product officer at Volvo Autonomous Solutions. “We built the Volvo VNL Autonomous from the ground up, integrating these redundancy systems to ensure that every safety-critical component is intentionally duplicated, thereby significantly enhancing both safety and reliability.”
Engineering teams from Volvo and self-driving vehicle company Aurora have worked closely together to integrate the Volvo VNL Autonomous and the Aurora Driver, a Level 4 autonomous driving system.
Level 4 vehicles can intervene if things go wrong or there is a system failure. In this sense, these vehicles do not require human interaction in most circumstances. However, a human still has the option to manually override.
Level 4 vehicles can operate in self-driving mode. But until legislation and infrastructure evolves, they can only do so within a limited area (usually an urban environment where top speeds reach an average of 30 mph). This is known as geofencing.
The Aurora Driver consists of artificial intelligence software, dual computers, proprietary lidar that can detect objects more than 400 meters away, high-resolution cameras, imaging radar and additional sensors.
“Powered by the Aurora Driver, the new Volvo VNL Autonomous is the realization of our shared vision,” said Sterling Anderson, co-founder and chief product officer at Aurora. “This truck combines Aurora’s industry-leading self-driving technology with Volvo’s best-in-class truck, designed specifically for autonomy, making it a must-have for any transport provider that wants to strengthen and grow their business.”
The Volvo VNL Autonomous will be assembled at Volvo’s flagship New River Valley (NRV) plant in Dublin, Virginia.
“The Volvo VNL Autonomous, powered by the Aurora Driver, offers a fully integrated autonomous solution in the Hub-to-Hub segment,” said Sasko Cuklev, head of on-road solutions at Volvo Autonomous Solutions. “Our approach reduces complexity for our customers while allowing them to experience the benefits of an autonomous solution with peace of mind by ensuring efficiency, safety and reliability.”
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