Daimler debuts autonomous truck on US roads

Daimler Trucks has become the world’s first manufacturer to be granted a road licence for an autonomous heavy-duty truck. The state of Nevada licensed two Freightliner Inspiration trucks for regular operation on public roads. The first journey in the Freightliner Inspiration truck equipped with the intelligent Highway Pilot system for autonomous driving took place on US highway 15 in Las Vegas.
May 20, 2015 Read time: 2 mins
2069 Daimler Trucks has become the world’s first manufacturer to be granted a road licence for an autonomous heavy-duty truck. The state of Nevada licensed two Freightliner Inspiration trucks for regular operation on public roads.

The first journey in the Freightliner Inspiration truck equipped with the intelligent Highway Pilot system for autonomous driving took place on US highway 15 in Las Vegas.

In July of last year, Daimler Trucks provided the world’s first demonstration of an autonomous truck in action when the Mercedes-Benz Future Truck 2025 drove along a cordoned-off section of the A14 autobahn near Magdeburg. In the last few months the technology has been tested over many thousands of kilometres and configured for use in US highway traffic.

The Freightliner Inspiration Truck is based on the series-produced US Freightliner Cascadia Evolution model, with the addition of the Highway Pilot technology. This comprises a front radar and stereo camera plus tried-and-tested assistance systems such as the Adaptive Cruise Control+, as seen in the Mercedes-Benz Actros. The technology was further developed and extensively tested for licensing on public roads in Nevada.

“Our Freightliner Inspiration Truck is the world’s first autonomous commercial vehicle to be licensed for road use. Our achievement here underlines yet again our role as a technological pioneer and demonstrates our consistent dedication to develop the technology for autonomous long-distance driving to series production standard,” stated Dr Wolfgang Bernhard, Daimler AG board member responsible for trucks and buses.

“We are in a unique position among manufacturers that we are able to implement technologies across all business units and brands. We have transferred our Highway Pilot system to our US Freightliner brand within a very short time frame and developed it for the world´s first autonomous truck to be licensed for road use,” reports Dr Bernhard.
Location Based Systems

Related Content

  • March 28, 2018
    US DOTs introduce measures to stop wrong-way driving
    Wrong-way driving (WWD) is a remarkably innocuous term for incidents that all too often cause some of the worst accidents that emergency services have to deal with. Several US states are now taking steps to minimise the problem, as Alan Dron finds out. You’re driving down a highway at night when you see approaching headlights. You initially assume they are merely those of an oncoming car on the opposite carriageway. It’s only when they are within 200 yards or so that you realise that the other driver is in
    Read More
  • June 30, 2020
    Connecticut public transit buses to go Robotic
    Service will be first in US to run automated buses on a fare-paying route
    Read More
  • January 5, 2017
    ZF and NVIDIA announce AI system for autonomous driving
    German auto supplier ZF is working with NVIDIA to develop artificial intelligence (AI) systems for the transportation industry, including automated and autonomous driving systems for passenger cars, commercial trucks, and industrial applications. Unveiled at CES 2017 in Las Vegas, the ZF ProAI for highway automated driving is ZF’s first system developed using NVIDIA AI technology. It aims to enable vehicles to better understand their environment by using deep learning to process sensor and camera data. I
    Read More
  • September 9, 2016
    Michigan moves to test self-driving cars without driver
    Michigan would no longer require a driver to be inside a self-driving car while testing it on public roads, according to Associated Press. The legislation was passed unanimously this week by the state Senate, where backers touted the measures as necessary to keep the US auto industry's home state ahead of the curve on rapidly advancing technology.
    Read More

Highlighted Content