Fleet Maintenance - 16

nation of trouble codes, and to detail necessary
diagnostic tools.
If maintenance is required for these systems,
fleets will most likely need to work at the dealer
level for service. For instance, most Volvo Trucks
dealerships are certified to handle maintenance
for Volvo Active Driver Assist (VADA), a comprehensive collision mitigation system, says Ash
Makki, product marketing manager, connectivity for Volvo Trucks. Volvo Trucks offers certi-

fication through Volvo Trucks Academy, which
requires in-person training, where technicians can
become certified to handle the specific software
and parameter updates associated with VADA.
Pronto does not require fleets to update the
company's Copilot software, Stojanovski says, as the
company maintains the software. Copilot is a retrofit highway safety system for commercial trucks.
"I would say the challenge for the technician
might lie in understanding the holisticness of
the system, and how the system works from one
component to another," says TuSimple's Sun on
maintaining autonomous vehicles. "We have a
training program with a community college in
Tucson, Arizona, where we test our vehicles. We
have created a curriculum that is designed for
truck drivers to learn to be autonomous truck
operators. Similarly, we are thinking [about] what
we can do for fleet technicians. Many things are
going into the manual with training so that the
fleet technicians know how to deal with and interact with autonomous driving systems."
Active safety systems and autonomous systems
will impact routine maintenance schedules for
fleets that integrate these technologies into their
operations. This will require a re-evaluation on
service intervals as operational implications with
these technological systems are not fully known.
Consider an autonomous truck with the ability
to operate 24/7; how might that impact braking
system service intervals? Hours of operation, say at
night with fewer vehicles on the road, as well as the
calculated actuation of automated braking systems
could lead to less hard stops. Conversely, being
unbeholden to driver hours of service regulations
and operating for extended hours could impact the
frequency of brake system service intervals.
To understand these maintenance implications,
OEMs and technology companies offering such
systems will have to continuously collect use-case
data from fleets that specify their technology. This
data can construct realistic expectations for intervals of routine maintenance and possible adjustments to warranties.

Bridging the gap

Maintenance challenges aside, how will the industry bridge the gap from the specification and
adoption of active safety systems to autonomous
vehicles implemented nationwide at mass scale?
"Active safety systems are the basic prerequisite for a safe autonomous solution," says Volvo
Trucks' Larsson. "Today there are limitations in
the technological capabilities, but we foresee rapid
development in many areas."
The major technological hurdles that need to
be addressed include utilizing artificial intelligence to enhance machine learning and predictive analytics, as well as building self-sufficient,
redundant operating systems.
"Why isn't anyone [at] Level 4 [SAE autonomy]?"
Stojanovski asks. "Fundamentally, we are missing a
scientific breakthrough on the artificial intelligence
VehicleServicePros.com/10121699

16 Fleet Maintenance | December 2019

» Autonomous solutions are operational
in test markets today, though limited to
certain applications and locations.
Photo courtesy of TuSimple

side that we have not achieved [as an industry]."
While the computer processing integral to
active safety systems is adept at recognizing and
understanding sensory data, these systems have
not yet been able to predict potential and imminent environmental changes at the speed and
accuracy with which a driver can.
A challenge with environmental recognition,
without adequate machine learning, is that the
autonomous systems' functionality is limited to
recognizing the environments in which it was
developed and tested.
"We have been testing in Arizona, New Mexico,
Texas, and southern states along the I-10 corridor," Sun says. "We do have the ambition to
provide autonomous driving service nationwide
in the coming years ... [the challenge is that] states
have different weather conditions, different road
construction, different networks. Those are basically the details we have to go into while we are
trying to roll out nationwide."
TuSimple continues to test and develop its
system under extreme weather conditions, as
well as tackle issues like night driving, in places
outside of their current areas of operation, in order
to increase the versatility and adaptability of their
autonomous system.
Vehicles operating at SAE Level 3, Level 4, or
Level 5 will require system redundancies that
aren't necessary at the lower levels, says Richard
Beyer, vice president, engineering and research
and development, Bendix.
"Beyond Level 3, systems will need redundant
sensor hardware," Beyer says. "In addition, the
vehicle will require redundant braking systems
and steering systems, all with redundant power
supply feeding those redundant systems. Vehicle
architecture will need to support the redundancy
requirements for Level 3 and beyond systems."

Conclusion

As the technology that active safety systems and
autonomous systems are built on is not new, its
specification into vehicles and the software it is
integrated with are changing the scope of commercial trucking.
Vehicle safety and efficiency can be realized
through active safety systems that are available in
the market today. Some autonomous solutions are
operational in test markets today as well, though
limited to certain applications and locations.
With a shift in operational procedures comes a
level of uncertainty. Only time will tell how these
systems will change day-to-day operations, as
well as the future of the industry. As more fleets
adopt such systems, more data will be produced,
a picture will be painted, and the progression of
technological advancement will be determined by
those willing to step onto the uncharted road.

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