Driverless trucks for China
A new partnership will see the development of next-generation autonomous heavy trucks to accelerate commercialisation of driverless trucks in China’s logistics market
US-based Velodyne Lidar, Inc. and Beijing Trunk Technology Co. Ltd (Trunk.Tech) will cooperate on lidar-enabled products that will be designed to meet the requirements of high-speed transportation logistics. The solutions will strengthen object awareness and detection capabilities of unmanned heavy trucks and are designed to promote rapid, large-scale vehicle production in a cost-effective, efficient way. Trunk.Tech has close cooperation with commercial vehicle OEMs to produce driverless trucks and ensure the vehicles comply with vehicle safety regulations.
Trunk.Tech is the first company in China to independently develop SAE Level 4 driverless trucks, based on its own powerful driverless hardware and software systems, and uses Velodyne’s lidar, including Ultra Puck™, Puck™, and Velarray H800 sensors as core sensor hardware in its autonomous trucks.
Trunk.Tech selected Velodyne due to sensor quality, performance, and mass production capacity.
"Autonomous trucks can supplement labour gaps, save fuel costs, and enhance logistics, as well as improve transportation safety and help reduce truck accident rates," says Dr Zhang TianLei, CEO, Trunk.Tech.
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"Velodyne sensors, combined with our multi-sensor fusion algorithms, enable trucks to achieve high-precision, long-range real-time sensing to support autonomous driving on complex road environments. Velodyne has the expertise and manufacturing scale to help us transform trucking and our companies share a strong focus on vehicle safety."
"Trunk.Tech is leading the industry in demonstrating how autonomous vehicle technology, powered by lidar, is bringing major efficiency and safety advances to trucking," says Anand Gopalan, chief executive officer, Velodyne Lidar.
"We look forward to working closely with Trunk.Tech on creating next-generation autonomous driving solutions that dramatically improve how goods and materials move in logistics networks."
Experience in autonomous trucking
Trunk.Tech has deployed Velodyne lidar sensors on dozens of driverless trucks in the last few years that have been delivered to commercial customers. These vehicles are operating autonomously at ports in China on a 24/7/365 basis to support operations.
Since winning China’s first commercial road test license in 2018, Trunk.Tech driverless trucks have carried out a large number of practical road tests on China roadways. It completed the country’s first high-speed test for fully autonomous driving. In 2019, Trunk.Tech won key national research and development programme projects, becoming the first driverless technology company to receive right-of-way support.
Trunk.Tech is also actively building a broad intelligent logistics ecosystem to support autonomous trucking in China. The ecosystem includes Trunk.Tech and Bosch Group at the driverless truck terminal and strategic partners China Heavy Automobile, Uberco, Ulse Automotive, and Geely Commercial Vehicles for collaboration to promote mass production.
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