Autonomous trucks are now driving highways at night, hauling food and dairy between Dallas and Houston.
It’s a big step forward for autonomous trucking. While Waymo for years has been operating driverless robotaxis around the clock in cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles, autonomous trucks until recently have stuck mainly to daytime hours and good weather.
Aurora Innovation, the startup behind the trucks on the Dallas-Houston route, said Wednesday it had reached a new milestone with its Lidar system, which bounces lasers off surrounding objects to “see” its surroundings in 3-D. Aurora said its system is now able, in the dark, to detect objects further than the length of three football fields, enabling the vehicle to identify pedestrians, other vehicles or debris on the road about 11 seconds sooner than a human driver.
