Localization
How our trucks place themselves in the world
Self-driving trucks, today
With testing in California and a growing commercial freight presence in Texas, our fleet of self-driving trucks is setting the new standard for safety and efficiency.
Built for the real world
Self-Driving Components
To most, the act of driving seems easy, but when you really think about it, it’s actually incredibly complicated. Moving goods from point A to point B safely requires conducting numerous complex, overlapping tasks, and the fact that most humans drive effortlessly while simultaneously talking on the phone or singing along with the radio is quite remarkable.
That’s our starting point, but we love these challenges. Our team works tirelessly to deliver on the promise of autonomous trucking, bringing elegant solutions to ensure these four complex tasks work together:
Perception
How our trucks “see” what’s around them
Planning
How our trucks pick their lanes, set their speeds and select their routes
Controls
How our trucks accelerate, brake and steer
These critical tasks are performed by our onboard computers, which are enormously powerful and specifically designed for self-driving trucks.
Under the Hood
- Sensing
Using an array of sensors, the truck is able to "see" what's around it.
- Thinking
A custom computer processes sensor data and plans the truck's path.
- Acting
The steering column, brakes, and throttle are controlled by the computer to safely move the truck to its destination.
- Human Machine Interface
An intuitive user interface ensures the Safety Driver is able to take control at all times, whether in manual or autonomous mode.
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Our Unique Approach
We’re taking a unique, system engineering approach to self-driving which gives us several key advantages.
Truck-specific
Our full-stack solution was built specifically for trucks and built from the ground up. Trucks run for hundreds of thousands of miles, in the harshest of environments, for extremely long stretches. Retrofitting existing systems from other automated vehicles wasn’t an option for us.
Purposeful progress
Our simulation-first approach minimizes the risk posed by on-road testing and keeps our systems learning and improving. We’ve logged thousands of miles on the road, without taking any safety shortcuts.
Dealing with uncertainty
The world is unpredictable. Where some in the self-driving industry believe they can perfectly perceive every object and have a predetermined approach to every possible scenario, our systems are built with the understanding that roads are dynamic and we need to account for the unexpected.
Systems thinking
We’ve taken a page out of the aerospace playbook, developing a top-down, multidisciplinary approach to building our trucks. This kind of systems thinking emphasizes safety, validation, and meticulous engineering.
Deployment-focused
We’re not interested in bragging rights. Instead of trying to be the first out-of-the-gate with science projects, we’ve stayed focused on deploying a fully developed fleet of self-driving trucks to deliver freight for our customers.
The Crazy-Talented People Making this a Reality
We have assembled a world-class team of pioneers from the AV, automotive, aerospace, and trucking industries. Our team includes a mix of engineering, technical, operations, and logistics experts who have decades of experience working on safety critical systems. If you ask us, they’re the most experienced and dedicated autonomous trucking professionals in the world.