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Aurora Innovation, headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, has created driverless semi-trucks that are already running autonomously in Texas with a safety operator behind the wheel.Before the end of 2024, Aurora believes that it will be ready to pull the drivers, leaving those trucks to drive themselves. Sister station WTAE is taking a look at the company on the brink of transforming one of the biggest industries in the United States.Some professional drivers will tell you they don’t think we’re ready for driverless semi-trucks.”Not only would it cut a lot of jobs out, but it’s not going to be safe. I don’t believe it will ever be safer than a human,” Mike Dayton said.”You have got to be able to make split-second decisions — OK, should I hit this deer, or should I hit this car?” Donald Hicklin said.Professional drivers are essential, as we learned during the COVID-19 pandemic. Look around the room you’re in; almost everything you see was delivered on a truck.It’s also a dangerous profession. In 2022, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration says 5,936 people were killed in wrecks involving large trucks, up from 3,675 in 2010.Nat Beuse, chief safety officer of Aurora Innovations, said the Pittsburgh-based company’s driverless semis are hoping to reduce those deaths.”That’s a huge cost to society,” Beuse said. “You think of the families that are impacted by that, loved ones that are never coming home because of that. We don’t have to accept that.”Aurora’s tech was designed and tested in Pittsburgh, at their headquarters in the city’s Strip District neighborhood, and on the Almono test track in Hazelwood, which is another Pittsburgh neighborhood.In a May 7 report, WTAE showed how Aurora’s proprietary lidar allows the trucks to see 500 yards into the distance and keeps tabs on other nearby drivers in a 360-degree field of vision.Still, some professional drivers are skeptical.”I don’t think it will ever work,” Dayton said. “There’s too many people out there who don’t pay attention to what they’re doing. They pull in front of trucks every day, slam on the brakes. A driverless semi can’t predict what other people are doing.”Aurora says it can.At Almono, they gave WTAE a demo of the exact scenario that the truck driver mentioned. An SUV pulled in front of the Aurora truck and slammed on the brakes; the truck, with no driver on board, also stopped.Another piece of Aurora’s training is happening in Texas. Since 2021, a fleet of trucks with a safety driver behind the wheel has logged over 1 million miles on two interstates.Aurora CEO Chris Urmson says the drivers have been “teaching” the tech how to respond.”They will drive a truck down the road, and we’ll record what they do, and we’ll look at, OK, in this situation, there’s a vehicle stopping in front and another pulled out around. How did they respond? And then we use machine learning to incorporate that into how the Aurora driver drives,” Urmson said.Aurora ran other demos, too.In one scenario, a “pedestrian” hid from the truck and then walked out at the last moment. Again, the truck quickly stopped.Sometimes, truck drivers must navigate debris in the road. For another demo, a garbage can was thrown in front of a truck. The semi dodged the can.Engineers have even taught the trucks how to respond to police. When the truck registers the lights and sirens, it pulls off the road and offers instructions to officers that are written on the outside of the truck about how to unlock the box to find its documents.By nature, the tech eliminates 100% of impaired and distracted driving. But what about scenarios the engineers could not think of?”The way we’re managing that is through the data set that U.S. DOT (Department of Transportation) has created,” Beuse said. “So U.S. DOT went and looked at what are the different ways that vehicles get in crashes, and they came up with these 37 scenarios, they call it, and we took those and we said, OK, what if we put the Aurora driver in each of these scenarios?”We’re looking at those, and we’re saying, OK, even if the crash was not avoidable, did we put the brakes on early enough or did we try to lane change at the appropriate time?”Aurora and other companies that use autonomous tech are required to report any incidents to the NHTSA’s standing general order. As of March 15, Aurora had reported five incidents — three cases in which another vehicle hit into the Aurora, and two with road debris striking the windshield.Beuse says Aurora is 93% finished with its safety case. WTAE asked, “If something were to happen in this next 7% of the work that you have left to do, even though the company has kind of put the flag down and said 2024 is going to be the year — it would be very disappointing probably to a lot of people if it wasn’t — if there was something that came up that you felt should keep these from not being on the roads from a safety perspective, would you speak up about that?””Of course,” Beuse said. “And not only me, probably a lot of other people in this company. Which, again, that speaks to the richness of the safety culture here.”Very few times in your life do you get to work on something like this that’s going to have such a tremendous impact, and we also understand the delicate balance of the public trust. … and yeah, we are not going to put this truck on the road if we don’t close that safety case.”What if the computer fails or something happens to one of the sensors? Those are other fair concerns that viewers may have when they watch this story.”Our solution for that is a dual computer, basically,” Beuse said. “We have a primary computer, and then we have a redundant computer, and one of the big wins that we got last year was actually having that generation of hardware that we’re actually going to launch be hardened.”So, you know, being able to fail over if something happens, those are all things that we’ve already — maybe ‘check the box’ makes it sound simple, but that box has been checked, that claim has been closed and we are on our way.”What about hacking? Beuse says that is part of Aurora’s safety case, too.”We do have triggers in there to be able to detect that stuff,” he said.Safety is also the reason that Aurora is currently operating only in Texas, where the weather is typically favorable for driving. Urmson says they are doing some small tests in snow and other inclement weather. If this Texas run is successful, Aurora hopes to expand to Pittsburgh and other parts of the country in the next five to 10 years.
Aurora Innovation, headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, has created driverless semi-trucks that are already running autonomously in Texas with a safety operator behind the wheel.
Before the end of 2024, Aurora believes that it will be ready to pull the drivers, leaving those trucks to drive themselves.
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Sister station WTAE is taking a look at the company on the brink of transforming one of the biggest industries in the United States.
Some professional drivers will tell you they don’t think we’re ready for driverless semi-trucks.
“Not only would it cut a lot of jobs out, but it’s not going to be safe. I don’t believe it will ever be safer than a human,” Mike Dayton said.
“You have got to be able to make split-second decisions — OK, should I hit this deer, or should I hit this car?” Donald Hicklin said.
Professional drivers are essential, as we learned during the COVID-19 pandemic. Look around the room you’re in; almost everything you see was delivered on a truck.
It’s also a dangerous profession. In 2022, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration says 5,936 people were killed in wrecks involving large trucks, up from 3,675 in 2010.
Nat Beuse, chief safety officer of Aurora Innovations, said the Pittsburgh-based company’s driverless semis are hoping to reduce those deaths.
“That’s a huge cost to society,” Beuse said. “You think of the families that are impacted by that, loved ones that are never coming home because of that. We don’t have to accept that.”
Aurora’s tech was designed and tested in Pittsburgh, at their headquarters in the city’s Strip District neighborhood, and on the Almono test track in Hazelwood, which is another Pittsburgh neighborhood.
In a May 7 report, WTAE showed how Aurora’s proprietary lidar allows the trucks to see 500 yards into the distance and keeps tabs on other nearby drivers in a 360-degree field of vision.
Still, some professional drivers are skeptical.
“I don’t think it will ever work,” Dayton said. “There’s too many people out there who don’t pay attention to what they’re doing. They pull in front of trucks every day, slam on the brakes. A driverless semi can’t predict what other people are doing.”
Aurora says it can.
At Almono, they gave WTAE a demo of the exact scenario that the truck driver mentioned. An SUV pulled in front of the Aurora truck and slammed on the brakes; the truck, with no driver on board, also stopped.
Another piece of Aurora’s training is happening in Texas. Since 2021, a fleet of trucks with a safety driver behind the wheel has logged over 1 million miles on two interstates.
Aurora CEO Chris Urmson says the drivers have been “teaching” the tech how to respond.
“They will drive a truck down the road, and we’ll record what they do, and we’ll look at, OK, in this situation, there’s a vehicle stopping in front and another pulled out around. How did they respond? And then we use machine learning to incorporate that into how the Aurora driver drives,” Urmson said.
Aurora ran other demos, too.
In one scenario, a “pedestrian” hid from the truck and then walked out at the last moment. Again, the truck quickly stopped.
Sometimes, truck drivers must navigate debris in the road. For another demo, a garbage can was thrown in front of a truck. The semi dodged the can.
Engineers have even taught the trucks how to respond to police. When the truck registers the lights and sirens, it pulls off the road and offers instructions to officers that are written on the outside of the truck about how to unlock the box to find its documents.
By nature, the tech eliminates 100% of impaired and distracted driving. But what about scenarios the engineers could not think of?
“The way we’re managing that is through the data set that U.S. DOT (Department of Transportation) has created,” Beuse said. “So U.S. DOT went and looked at what are the different ways that vehicles get in crashes, and they came up with these 37 scenarios, they call it, and we took those and we said, OK, what if we put the Aurora driver in each of these scenarios?
“We’re looking at those, and we’re saying, OK, even if the crash was not avoidable, did we put the brakes on early enough or did we try to lane change at the appropriate time?”
Aurora and other companies that use autonomous tech are required to report any incidents to the NHTSA’s standing general order. As of March 15, Aurora had reported five incidents — three cases in which another vehicle hit into the Aurora, and two with road debris striking the windshield.
Beuse says Aurora is 93% finished with its safety case.
WTAE asked, “If something were to happen in this next 7% of the work that you have left to do, even though the company has kind of put the flag down and said 2024 is going to be the year — it would be very disappointing probably to a lot of people if it wasn’t — if there was something that came up that you felt should keep these from not being on the roads from a safety perspective, would you speak up about that?”
“Of course,” Beuse said. “And not only me, probably a lot of other people in this company. Which, again, that speaks to the richness of the safety culture here.
“Very few times in your life do you get to work on something like this that’s going to have such a tremendous impact, and we also understand the delicate balance of the public trust. … and yeah, we are not going to put this truck on the road if we don’t close that safety case.”
What if the computer fails or something happens to one of the sensors? Those are other fair concerns that viewers may have when they watch this story.
“Our solution for that is a dual computer, basically,” Beuse said. “We have a primary computer, and then we have a redundant computer, and one of the big wins that we got last year was actually having that generation of hardware that we’re actually going to launch be hardened.
“So, you know, being able to fail over if something happens, those are all things that we’ve already — maybe ‘check the box’ makes it sound simple, but that box has been checked, that claim has been closed and we are on our way.”
What about hacking? Beuse says that is part of Aurora’s safety case, too.
“We do have triggers in there to be able to detect that stuff,” he said.
Safety is also the reason that Aurora is currently operating only in Texas, where the weather is typically favorable for driving. Urmson says they are doing some small tests in snow and other inclement weather. If this Texas run is successful, Aurora hopes to expand to Pittsburgh and other parts of the country in the next five to 10 years.
(source)