The more than 80-mile run required TuSimple to upfit an autonomous Class 8 truck to run from a railyard in Tucson, Arizona, to a centre in the Phoenix metro area.
TuSimple completed the first fully autonomous semi-truck run on open public roads without a human in the vehicle and human intervention.TuSimple’s Autonomous Driving System (ADS) navigated 100 per cent of the 80-mile run along surface streets and highways between a railyard in Tuscon, Arizona, and a distribution centre in Phoenix, which took place with no human intervention, marking a milestone for the company that aims to scale its technology into purpose-built trucks by 2024.
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The one-hour and 20-minute drive is part of an ongoing test program called Driver Out that will continue into 2022. The test was performed closely with the Arizona Department of Transportation and law enforcement. The autonomous driving test was operated by TuSimple’s ADS without a human on-board, without remote human control of the vehicle, and without traffic intervention.
To ensure public safety, TuSimple said that they worked closely with government regulators and law enforcement and implemented a TuSimple survey vehicle to look for anomalies operating over five miles ahead, an oversight vehicle capable of putting the autonomous truck in a minimal risk condition trailing behind, and law enforcement vehicles following at a distance of 0.5 miles as an extra layer of safety precaution.
The first generation of the trucks will be built with a steering wheel for specific operations in the yard, like shifting, or the process of separating and shifting the tractor and trailer will initially be done by hand.
