Truck & Off-Highway Engineering - February 2024 - 6

TECHNICAL INNOVATIONS
CONNECTIVITY
TE Connectivity
powers down highpower
systems
Continental will begin building initial versions of the hardware for testing this year, including at its
new facility in New Braunfels, Texas.
driving parameters. Continental also
stated that it plans to start mass production
of the system by 2027 and will directly
ship the Aurora Driver hardware to
Aurora's truck manufacturing partners.
Aurora is planning its initial driverless
truck launch for the end of 2024.
Redundancy realized
Aurora and Continental confided that
their design will feature a fallback system
that is intended to operate the vehicle
without a human driver. According
to their announcement, the fallback
system is a specialized secondary computer
that can take over operation if a
failure occurs in the primary system.
This approach is intended to reduce the
exposure of the main and fallback systems
to single points of failure.
" From day one, we knew we'd need
to build a strong ecosystem of partners
to bring this technology to market safely
and at a commercial scale, " said Chris
Urmson, cofounder and CEO at Aurora.
" Finalizing the design of our future
hardware is a meaningful step toward
making the unit economics of the
Aurora Driver compelling and building a
business for the long-term. "
Keeping time
Continental and Aurora included a detailed
timeline for this system's devel6
February 2024
opment cycle as part of their announcement.
From 2024-2025, the companies
plan to build and test the system architecture.
Continental will build initial versions
of the hardware for testing at its
facility in New Braunfels, Texas.
From 2026-2027, the firms plan to
finalize the design and begin serial
production and integration. Continental
will validate the Aurora Driver hardware
and fallback system before the start of
production at its facilities. The hardware
will utilize Continental sensors, automated
driving control units, telematics
units and other components.
The hardware and fallback system
will be shipped to Aurora's trucking
manufacturing partners for integration
into autonomous-ready vehicles. During
this phase, the companies also will develop
a service playbook and maintenance
network for Aurora's customers.
From 2027 and beyond, the firms plan
to have the Aurora Driver ready to autonomously
haul freight across the U.S.
" Entering an exclusive partnership with
Aurora was a very good decision as it is
an ideal match, " von Hirschheydt said.
" Being the industry's only Tier 1 supplier
with a commitment to industrialize autonomous
hardware kits at scale allows
us to be at the forefront of and capitalize
on this groundbreaking technology. "
Matt Wolfe
Commercial trucks and off-highway vehicles,
faced with new regulatory developments,
customer demands and market
pressures, are responding by undergoing
a renaissance of innovation. In the
past few years, these vehicles have become
increasingly advanced. They now
include several new high-technology
systems and features that are enabling
improvements in operational performance,
sustainability and productivity.
The driver of electrification is regulators'
and shareholders' insistence that
the transportation sector reduce carbon
emissions, as well as the general desire
across society for greater sustainability.
Electronification, on the other hand, is
about improving performance. A myriad
of new electronics are emerging in
trucks and off-highway vehicles, including
new sensors, cameras, hardware,
high-speed connectivity, user-friendly
touchscreens and telematics packages,
that combine to enable vehicle-to-vehicle
(V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure
(V2I) communications that improve
both efficiency and safety.
The culmination of these two trends
will be in the form of SAE Level 5 autonomous
vehicles that unlock greater
productivity and significantly improve
safety across commercial trucking and
off-highway applications, including agriculture,
construction, mining and
warehousing. Recognizing that in many
industries there is a shortage of qualified
operators, autonomous vehicles
will also help organizations to overcome
this challenge.
Though full Level 5 autonomy remains
many years away, the benefits of
other new technologies are being realized
today thanks to their impact on
productivity and safety.
" Electrification and electronification
are impacting trucking and off-highway
operators at different speeds due to the
size of their fleets, route requirements,
budgets and age of their vehicles, " said
TRUCK & OFF-HIGHWAY ENGINEERING
CONTINENTAL

Truck & Off-Highway Engineering - February 2024

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