Startup wants to put self-driving big rigs on US highways
Startup wants to put self-driving big rigs on US highways
By MICHAEL LIEDTKE May. 17, 2016 12:12 AM EDT
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Picture an 18-wheel truck barreling
down the highway with 80,000 pounds of cargo and no one but a robot at the
wheel.
To many, that might seem a frightening idea, even at a
time when a few dozen of Google's driverless cars are cruising city streets in
California, Texas, Washington and Arizona.
But Anthony Levandowski, a robot-loving engineer who
helped steer Google's self-driving technology, is convinced autonomous big rigs
will be the next big thing on the road to a safer transportation system.
Levandowski left Google earlier this year to pursue his
vision at Otto, a San Francisco startup the he co-founded with two other former
Google employees, Lior Ron and Don Burnette, and another robotics expert,
Claire Delaunay.
Otto is aiming to equip trucks with software, sensors,
lasers and cameras so they eventually will be able to navigate the more than
220,000 miles of U.S. highways on their own, while a human driver naps in the
back of the cab or handles other tasks.
For now, the robot truckers would only take control on
the highways, leaving humans to handle the tougher task of wending through city
streets. The idea is similar to the automated pilots that fly jets at high
altitudes while leaving the takeoffs and landings to humans.
"Our goal is to make trucks drive as humanly as
possible, but with the reliability of machines," Levandowski says.
That objective probably won't be reached for decades,
despite the progress made with automated passenger vehicles over the past five
years, predicts Steven Shladover, program manager for mobility at the
University of California's Partners for Advanced Transportation Technology. He
maintains that the technology is still a long way from being reliable enough to
convince government regulators that a robot can be entrusted to steer a truck
traveling at highway speeds without causing a catastrophic accident.
"I don't want to be on that highway when there is
nobody there to take over a truck with 80,000 pounds of cargo and I don't think
I know anyone else who would want to be," Shladover says. "The
consequences of any kind of failure in any component would be too severe."
Google's self-driving cars have logged about 1.6 million
miles in autonomous mode without being involved in an accident that resulted in
a deaths or major injuries. Of the more than 20 accidents involving its
self-driving cars Google has accepted the blame for only one — a February
collision with a bus in Mountain View, California.
It would be easier to brush off robot trucks as a
far-fetched concept if not for Levandowski's background.
Levandowski has been working on automated driving for
more than a decade, starting in 2004 with a self-driving motorcycle called
Ghostrider that is now in the Smithsonian's National Museum of American
History. He also designed PriBot, a self-driving Prius that crossed the San
Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge to deliver a pizza in 2008 before Google unveiled
its fleet of autonomous cars.
Otto already has assembled a crew of about 40 employees
experienced in self-driving cars to transplant the technology to trucks. With
former employees from Google, Apple and Tesla Motors, Otto boasts that its team
is made up of "some of the sharpest minds in self-driving
technology."
Although only four months old, Otto already has outfitted
three big-rig cabs with its automated technology. The company completed its
first extended test of its system on public highways in Nevada during the past
weekend.
Otto went to Nevada because California's self-driving
regulations apply only to passenger cars, forbidding the technology from being
used on public roads by commercial trucks or any vehicle exceeding 10,000
pounds.
Now, Otto is looking for 1,000 truckers to volunteer to
have self-driving kits installed on their cabs, at no cost, to help fine-tune
the technology. The volunteer truckers would still be expected to seize the
wheel and take control of the truck if the technology fails or the driving
conditions make it unsafe to remain in autonomous mode, mirroring the laws
governing tests of self-driving cars on public streets and highways.
Otto hasn't set a timetable for completing its tests, but
hopes to eventually retrofit all the U.S. trucks on the road. That would
encompass more than 4.7 million trucks, according to the American Trucking
Associations.
The startup touts its technology as way to make up for a
worsening shortage of truck drivers as more of them retire without enough
younger drivers to replace them. Last year, the shortage stood at 47,500 and,
unless recent trends change, will rise to nearly 175,000 by 2024, according to
the American Trucking Associations.
The trade group hasn't taken a stand on self-driving
technology, but may draw up a policy later this year, said Dave Osiecki,
executive vice president and chief of national advocacy.
"We are paying close attention because this could be
huge for trucking in terms of labor costs and safety," Osiecki says.
Levandowski insists self-driving trucks aren't as scary
as they might sound. Robot truckers are less likely to speed or continue to
drive in unsafe conditions than a human, and will never get tired. Between 10
and 20 percent of the roughly 4,000 fatal accidents in the U.S. each year
involving trucks and buses are linked to driver fatigue, based on estimates
gathered by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.
"It's really silly to have a person steering a truck
for eight hours just to keep it between two lines on the highway,"
Levandowski says.
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