In over four years of supervised pilot hauls, the Aurora Driver has delivered over 10,000 customer loads across three million autonomous miles, the company said. | Source: Aurora
Aurora Innovation Inc. last week launched a commercial self-driving trucking service in Texas. The deployment will provide autonomous freight transportation between Dallas and Houston.
Aurora’s flagship product, the Aurora Driver, is an SAE Level 4 self-driving system that the company is first deploying in long-haul trucking. To date, the Aurora Driver has completed more than 1,200 miles without a driver.
This latest milestone is the first time that Aurora will operate a commercial self-driving service with heavy-duty trucks on public roads.
“We founded Aurora to deliver the benefits of self-driving technology safely, quickly, and broadly. Now, we are the first company to successfully and safely operate a commercial driverless trucking service on public roads,” stated Chris Urmson, co-founder and CEO of Aurora. “Riding in the back seat for our inaugural trip was an honor of a lifetime – the Aurora Driver performed perfectly, and it’s a moment I’ll never forget.”
Aurora Driver follows the rules of the road
Urmson, Sterling Anderson, and Drew Bagnell founded Aurora in 2017. The Pittsburgh-based company designed its Aurora Driver to operate with multiple vehicle types, from freight-hauling trucks to ride-hailing passenger vehicles.
The Aurora Driver is equipped with a computer and sensors that can see beyond the length of four football fields, enabling it to safely operate on the highway. In over four years of supervised pilot hauls, the company claimed that its system has delivered more than 10,000 customer loads across 3 million autonomous miles. It has also demonstrated capabilities including predicting red light runners, avoiding collisions, and detecting pedestrians in the dark hundreds of meters away.
Aurora added that its Verifiable AI approach to autonomy blends learning models with “guardrails” to help ensure the rules of the road are followed, like yielding for emergency vehicles. Verifiable AI also played a role in enabling Aurora to close its driverless safety case.
Aurora’s launch trucks include the Aurora Driver hardware kit and redundant systems including braking, steering, power, sensing, controls, computing, cooling, and communication, enabling them to safely operate without a human driver. The truck platform was validated and approved by Aurora for driverless operations on public roads.
Aurora believes working with manufacturing partners is the only way to deploy self-driving trucks at scale, and continues to make progress with its partners on purpose-built driverless platforms designed for high-volume production. The company plans to share more details about its launch and ongoing commercial operations at its upcoming first-quarter business review.
Aurora is working with industry leaders across the transportation ecosystem, including Continental, FedEx, Hirschbach, NVIDIA, PACCAR, Ryder, Schneider, Toyota, Uber, Uber Freight, Volvo Trucks, Volvo Autonomous Solutions, and Werner. The company said it hopes to expand its driverless service to El Paso, Texas, and Phoenix, Ariz., by the end of the year.
Aurora moves from safety case to deployment
Aurora’s launch customers are Uber Freight, a market-leading enterprise technology company powering intelligent logistics, and Hirschbach Motor Lines, a veteran-owned carrier that delivers time- and temperature-sensitive freight. Both companies have had long-standing supervised commercial pilots with Aurora.
Prior to driverless operations, Aurora closed its safety casein which it assembled evidence to show its product is acceptably safe for public roads. The company said safety cases are an essential tool for any businesses deploying autonomous vehicle technology as they promote transparency and build trust with regulators and the public.
Aurora also released a Driverless Safety Reportwhich included details about the Aurora Driver’s operating domain for initial operations along with its approach to cybersecurity, remote assistance, and more safety-critical topics.
“Aurora’s transparent, safety-focused approach to delivering autonomous technology has always given me confidence they’re doing this the right way,” said Richard Stocking, CEO of Hirschbach Motor Lines. “Transforming an old school industry like trucking is never easy, but we can’t ignore the safety and efficiency benefits this technology can deliver. Autonomous trucks aren’t just going to help grow our business – they’re also going to give our drivers better lives by handling the lengthier and less desirable routes.”
Aurora said it prioritizes consistent transparency and collaboration with elected officials, government agencies, and safety organizations. Entities that were briefed on the Aurora Driver’s readiness for driverless operations included:
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA)
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)
National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB)
Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT)
Texas Department of Public Safety (TxDPS)
Texas Department of Motor Vehicles (TxDMV)
Local law enforcement in Texas
Inside the autonomous trucking landscape
Trucking is a trillion-dollar industry in the U.S., but it faces challenges, including an aging driver population with high turnover rates, skyrocketing operating costs, and underutilized assets.
These intensify every year, making the value proposition of autonomy – a solution that will offer safe, reliable capacity without an impact on jobs – highly attractive to the trucking industry. Most U.S. states today allow for driverless vehicles, including Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. Despite this, the industry has been slow to make progress.
Alongside Aurora, Kodiak Robotics, Gatik, and Torc Robotics are just some of the companies hoping to make autonomous trucking a standard. In April, Kodiak Robotics announced that it would be going public via a special-purpose acquisition company, or SPAC.
Through its partnership with Atlas Energy Solutions, the company said driverless trucks have surpassed 750 hours of commercial driverless operations without a human driver on board. Last month, it secured a firm commitment from Atlas to order an initial 100 trucks.
Also in April, Gatik received a successful independent review for the Safety Case Evaluation and Functional Safety phases of its Safety Assessment Framework from TÜV SÜD. It claimed that this third-party assessment was the first of its kind and that it marks a significant milestone toward the commercialization of self-driving freight operations.
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