Scania has been granted permission by the Swedish Transport Company to check self-driving vans on the E4 freeway between Södertälje and Jönköping. 

The exams will happen in collaboration with TuSimple, which is a frontrunner within the improvement of autonomous automobiles and a key associate in Scania’s and TRATON group’s funding on this area. 

The vans will enter industrial service with the Scania Transport Laboratory and can be loaded with items for Scania’s manufacturing operations. The exams will cowl know-how based on stage 4 on the 5-point SAE scale for self-driving automobiles, which implies that the vans are pushed autonomously however for security causes are supervised by a driver. A check engineer may also be on board throughout Scania’s exams with the duty of monitoring and verifying the knowledge which is transmitted to the truck from the sensors that allow autonomous driving. 

“In each the US and China, exams are already underway of vans based on Degree 4 on public roads, however so far as I do know Scania is the primary in Europe to check the know-how on a motorway and with payload,” says Hans Nordin, who’s chargeable for the Hub2hub venture.

Later this yr, Scania plans to broaden the exams to cowl the complete route between Södertälje and Helsingborg.

“Within the coming years, we additionally anticipate to have the ability to check the know-how in different European nations and in China,” says Nordin.

Scania has been testing self-driving vans for mining transportation in Australia since 2017.  

“The expertise gained from these exams exhibits that autonomous automobiles can turn out to be a actuality in only a few years for transportation in closed areas equivalent to mines and terminals,” says Nordin. 

Based on Nordin, so-called Hub2hub transportation – driving on the freeway between reloading centres – is the primary type of transportation on public roads the place self-driving vans can turn out to be a actuality. 

“We’ve got come to date within the improvement of self-driving automobiles that the know-how could also be able to be launched to the market already throughout the subsequent 5 years for the sort of transportation. Nevertheless, it’s going to take longer earlier than autonomous automobiles for driving on roads with two-way visitors and in city environments turns into a actuality,” concludes Nordin.