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from the what-could-possibly-go-wrong? dept.
Drone truck startup Einride unveils new driverless vehicles for autonomous freight hauling:
Einride, the Swedish autonomous trucking startup, unveiled a new vehicle type that the company hopes to have on the road delivering freight starting in 2021. The vehicles, dubbed Autonomous Electric Transport (AET), came in four different variations. And much like Einride’s previous prototypes, they come without steering wheels, pedals, windshields, and, in general, no cab at all.
Einride has been in the business of releasing interesting, eye-catching prototype vehicles since it was founded in 2016. There was the cab-less T-Pod, released in 2017, four of which are operating on public roads hauling freight for Oatly, the Swedish food producer. A year later, the company unveiled the T-Log, built to be more powerful than its predecessor for the job of (you guessed it) hauling tons of giant tree logs. Now it has a next-generation vehicle that it hopes it can put into production.
Einride’s also been engaged with the less glamorous part of the job, which is testing, validating, and seeking regulatory approval for its vehicles, all of which are electric and can be controlled remotely by a human operator, in addition to operating autonomously without human intervention. The company has yet to reveal its plans for production and manufacturing.
Design-wise, the AET vehicles look almost identical to Einride’s Pod (previously T-Pod) prototype: sleek, white, cab-less pods with smooth lines and an otherworldly feel. Einride CEO Robert Falck said the AET is more aerodynamic than previous iterations, which will help when the company starts to scale up its manufacturing. “When you nail a design the first time, why reinvent the wheel?” Falck said.
The new AET vehicles come in four levels. The first two — AET 1 and AET 2 — have top speeds of 30 km/h (18 mph), weigh 26 tons, have payloads of 16 tons, and a battery range of 130-180 km (80-110 miles). AET 3 and AET 4 have similar weight and payload capacity, with top speeds of 45 km/h and 85 km/h, respectively.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday October 08 2020, @07:10PM (11 children)
One of my favorite concepts for drone deployment is a pickup truck bed launch / land / recharge facility for a number of (like 6+) surveillance drones. Drive up, launch three - send them out on a recon pattern mission - maybe relocate the truck if that suits the mission - then launch the next three so they can get on-station before the first three run out of power - first three return to truck for battery swap then they re-deploy when the previous group is nearing bingo fuel... Autopilots handle the mundane details of launch / recovery and navigation to / from observation points / search or mapping grids, human operators can watch the real-time feeds and give high level targeting instructions / coverage area redefinitions.
Only makes it better if the truck itself is self-driving.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/06/24/7408365/
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 08 2020, @07:53PM (2 children)
> if the truck itself is self-driving.
I don't think you've thought this through yet(?) If the truck is self driving, then who is going to change the drone batteries (and generally maintain them--replace shot-up blades, etc)?
(Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Thursday October 08 2020, @08:10PM (1 child)
Robots! Seriously, it's not beyond reasonable current tech to auto-swap and charge the batteries on landing - although putting a meat puppet in the bed of the truck would be faster to market and cheaper to develop, initially at least.
As for shot-up blades... where are you operating? If you are somewhere that the drones are getting shot up, most times they just won't be coming back, even if you have a hexacopter that can operate with one dead arm - and in that case, all the better reason for the truck to be self driving. Also, if the mission calls for 3 flyers in the air, nothing says that the service bay can't hold 9 or 12 ready for launch. Generally, we'd get hundreds of hours on our hexacopters before they needed more than a battery change - they would more often crash than return to the operators with damage.
To me, the use case for this would be something like accident site documentation - arrive and get full aerial coverage of the scene within minutes, or search and rescue covering a big area looking for a relatively easy-to-spot target like hikers that might be laying down injured in tall grass. It's not going to work well with tree canopy, and tracking people in a crowd would be challenging - almost impossible if they've got "cover" they can duck into, but looking for "hot" targets (live people) in a "cold" field should work well with IR imagers. It could also do long-term loitering - like perimeter patrol around a school sporting event or similar.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/06/24/7408365/
(Score: 1, Funny) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday October 08 2020, @08:58PM
That truck looks like a small livestock transport. The only meat puppet in the cargo area won't be charging batteries, but will be prepping the Sub-Saharan African bulls before their autonomous delivery to hungry Swedish wives.
Of course I don't know how this will work in America, as we have to have the Department of Agriculture inspect and certify all incoming bulls from foreign countries. I heard the Swedes tried to get around this by instead importing straws of bull semen and breeding domestically, but that didn't work out because the Swedish executives kept inhaling the contents of the straws as if they were Pixie-Stix.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday October 08 2020, @08:13PM (7 children)
Amazon probably wants drone barges to deliver packages, if they can't just go all the way and back from a facility with the drone.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday October 08 2020, @08:25PM (6 children)
We've got a container port and distribution hub here... you know they'd replace those long haul truck drivers with robots if they could. The to-your-door delivery is probably using meat puppets for the bulk of orders in the coming 10 years, not that they won't do flashy promotional fast drone delivery of super-light objects, but it's just so damn risky to try to operate them in residential settings with trees, dogs, weather, kids, Bubbas with shotguns, etc.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/06/24/7408365/
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday October 08 2020, @08:59PM (5 children)
How often do people who own shotguns shoot trucks in your neighbourhood currently?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 08 2020, @09:35PM
Maybe he lives in Tempe?
https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/arizona-city-reports-people-attacking-waymo-self-driving-cars-11185541 [phoenixnewtimes.com]
So far the reports say rocks are being thrown at the self-driving cars, but that could escalate, shotguns could be the next step.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday October 09 2020, @01:12AM (3 children)
I checked the voter rolls - sort of by accident - but I did find out that 90% of my neighbors are registered R.
I know from talking with them than at least 80% of them own guns, most of them a safe full and then some.
No pickup trucks hit with shotguns since I moved in, but basically any excuse to discharge a weapon, yeah... they're all over it.
Did I mention that there are TRUMP 2020 signs in the yards, still? Anybody that far over the cuckoo's nest is likely to think along the lines of: "drone in the sky, that's different, I ain't heard of no law against shootin' drones outta the sky. Let me discharge my high powered rifles more or less straight up trying to hit a little fast moving target in an urban area to teach those STEM nerds a lesson about who really runs this town. I'm buddies with the Sheriff's deputy they ain't gonna do nothin' to me, looks like self defense or some shit."
For reference: https://agrilife.org/texasaglaw/2016/01/19/drones-privacy-part-potential-common-law-claims/ [agrilife.org] https://dronelife.com/2019/03/04/drones-will-be-shot-down-until-these-misconceptions-are-tackled/ [dronelife.com] https://dronedj.com/2018/11/19/man-shoots-gun-at-neighbors-drone/ [dronedj.com] http://www.aero-news.net/index.cfm?do=main.textpost&id=84755807-5173-4991-8b5e-692954057c81 [aero-news.net] https://dronedj.com/2020/05/14/minnesota-man-shoots-down-drone-with-shotgun/ [dronedj.com]
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/06/24/7408365/
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Friday October 09 2020, @02:22AM (2 children)
How odd. Imagine living in a country where people register their political party when they register as a voter.
Oh, and shoot guns in the air willy-nilly. That's stupid too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2020, @04:31AM
Every 4th of July in Detroit there are deaths due to people shooting off live rounds into the air, not thinking or caring about where they come down. It's lessened somewhat now that small fireworks are slightly less illegal than before.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday October 09 2020, @10:10AM
Not everybody, and not every TRUMP supporter either, but... if you get all the gun nuts in a room and then take a roll call for who they support in the coming election, it's going to run a strong strong majority one way.
Plenty of Republicans are non gun owners, a minority but a significant one.
Plenty of gun owners are responsible with their weapons, a strong majority, but with something that involves deadly hazards - the number that aren't bright enough to control the hazards is definitely too damn high, not as high as COVID scoffers: ~15,000 murders per year, ~500 accidental deaths, still too damn high.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/06/24/7408365/