As the global logistics industry continues moving towards the introduction and use of autonomous vehicles, a growing number of companies are competing for a slice of this burgeoning market. One such firm is Californian start-up TuSimple, which is developing a range of innovative self-driving truck technologies.

The mission of the San Diego-based company is to bring the first self-driving truck to market and to increase safety, decrease transportation costs and reduce carbon emissions. To this end, it has created novel autonomous technology that will enable shipping companies and other clients to operate self-driving Class 8 tractor-trailers (vehicles weighing over 33,000 pounds, with three or more axles).

TuSimple trucks operate at SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) Level 4, which means they can achieve full automation without human intervention under defined driving conditions. The company is in the middle of a validation phase and is still testing its solution, however, so each journey includes not only a safety driver but a test engineer to monitor the autonomous system.

As Robert Brown, TuSimple’s head of Government Relations and Public Affairs, explains, one of the particular challenges of transport trucks is that their typical braking distance is 100 metres, which is “substantially longer” than the distance needed for a passenger car. Autonomous trucks have to ‘see’ far enough ahead to have time to recognize obstacles, react and make smooth maneuvers. The 1,000 metres are key because, at typical motorway speeds, this distance provides onboard systems with 35 seconds of reaction time to make safe and effective driving decisions.

In order to tackle this challenge, the company has developed a camera-based approach which Brown believes surpasses systems cent red on Lidar (light detection and ranging), as used by other autonomous driving companies.