In 2018 on the roads of Norway began to drive the truck Volvo, inside of which there is no driver control of a huge machine was fully entrusted to the computer. He successfully transported produced at the mine the limestone to the port with a cargo ship, but if the company used two Autonomous truck transportation would be carried out much faster. Unfortunately, due to the high risk of accident, the company has not yet decided to ride several unmanned vehicles. But why other companies do not give one driver the opportunity to control several trucks? Because this technology already exists.

The technology is called Automated Follow, and its developer is the American company Peloton. We already wrote about her in 2014 when she presented a system that allows Autonomous trucks to follow a controlled man truck, saving between a 10-meter distance. At that time the technology was imperfect, because it only regulated the speed, and the turns of said driving drivers. Now, after a whole 5 years, the system has learned to turn on their own.

Autonomous truck

Thanks to the Automated Follow, the driver of one truck is able to drive a huge convoy of cars. The essence of technology is that next to the main truck of the car using their sensors for a complete repetition of the manoeuvres of their leader. While riding they keep my distance and make turns, and when the driver of the lead car pushing on the brake pedal — stop obediently. Sounds interesting, but the question is — how will the autopilot, if the trucks can squeeze through any car? And how other road users will know that all the cars in the convoy strictly follows the movement of the first?

Thanks to the Automated Follow, trucks can save between distance

At the moment the company is experiencing technology just for the two trucks, but in the future thus it will be possible to manage the entire columns. In addition, the use of multiple trucks allows fast transportation of cargo, this approach significantly saves fuel. The fact that when riding with the wind resistance faced only the main truck, and moving him back to back of the car is almost not exposed to oncoming flow. Due to the low load, they can save 7 to 10% of fuel.

This is also interesting: What is wrong with the Autonomous truck from Lebedev Studio?

Truck Tesla

Interestingly, I heard about this technology Elon Musk? His electric Tesla truck Semi is still under development, but already in 2020, it needs to go on sale. However, Tesla, this approach is hardly interesting, because she’s hard at work developing a system of Autonomous driving. I think she will be so reliable that it will be the main feature of the service taxi from Elon musk. Just imagine you ordered a taxi, and you have a car without a driver. Sounds interesting, but is it safe?

If you would entrust your life to a car controlled by the computer? Share your opinion in the comments, or in