Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
Embark Autonomous Trucks Still Need Humans
How close are we to a future in which truck drivers are no longer necessary? We're still quite a ways away, according to Embark technology company.
(Embark autonomous trucks)
Last year, Embark began working with appliance provider Electrolux to transport Frigidaire refrigerators as part of a partnership with Ryder trucks. The 650-mile route starts in El Paso, Texas, and runs along Interstate 10 into Los Angeles. By the end of this year, Embark will be operating 40 trucks along the route, Rodrigues said. Embark works by exchanging trailers between local drivers and automated trucks at freight hubs situated along highways. The human driver navigates the manually driven Embarktruck into and through the destination and departure cities. But for the bulk of the trip — the highway — technology in the truck is doing the driving.“Truck drivers are freaking out because they think their jobs will be taken away, and that’s not the case,” said Antti Lindstrom, an analyst with IHS Markit. “You still need the human input, though the character of the job will change.”
Lindstrom likened the Embark test system to aircraft, where the plane itself does the flying for most of a trip but pilots take over for landing and taxiing.
“What makes a driverless testing system safe,” Rodrigues said, “is an attentive driver. Engineering is the minority of what we do in terms of safety. It’s required, but not sufficient to be safe.”
Fans of science fiction great Philip K. Dick may recall his prediction of autonomous trucks in his 1955 short story Autofac:
The truck was massive, rumbling under its tightly packed load. In many ways, it resembled conventional human-operated transportation vehicles, but with one exception -- there was no driver's cabin. The horizontal surface was a loading stage, and the part that would normally be the headlights and radiator grill was a fibrous spongelike mass of receptors, the limited sensory apparatus of this mobile utility extension.
(Read more and see illustration of Philip K. Dick's autonomous truck)
Via Trucks.com.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 7/15/2018)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )
Related News Stories - (" Vehicle ")
Leader-Follower Autonomous Vehicle Technology
'Jason had been guiding the caravan of cars as usual...' - Gordon R. Dickson, 1954.
Inmotion Electric Unicycle In Combat
'It is about the size and shape of a kitchen stool, gyro-stabilized...' - Robert Heinlein, 1940.
Congress Considers Automatic Emergency Braking, One Hundred Years Too Late
'The greatest problem of all was the elimination of the human element of braking together with its inevitable time lag.' - Bernhard Brown, 1934.
The 'Last Mile' In China Crowded With Delivery Robots
Yes, it's a delivery robot. On wheels.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
AI Operates An Excavator
'So far as I could see, the thing was without a directing Martian at all.'
US Army IBEX Exoskeleton Walks Troops Out Of Danger
'The suit stands up and starts walking, gripping me round the calves and waist, taking the bulk of my weight off my throbbing feet.'
Boy Makes Biomimetic Turtle Robot
't came out into plain view. Darkington glimpsed a slim body and six short legs of articulated dull metal.'
Elon Musk Wants Data Centers In Space
'Internally it’s made up of millions of components, but the most important ones are the thinking and memory parts of the Mind proper.'
Origin F1 Humanoid Robot's Facial Skin
'I could look down at that face of carefully molded synthetic rubber, tinted the exact shade of the doctor's living flesh.'
Grok And The City Fathers From 'Cities In Flight' By James Blish
'Chris, the City Fathers are not interested in your welfare; I suppose you know that. They're interested in only one thing: the survival of the city.'
Why Not Move A Warehouse District?
'Did you never see a moving house before?'
Will An AI Found A New Religion?
'You must decide how you will worship Me.'
Terraformer Industries Make Methane
'Drake was the young spatial engineer he employed to terraform the little rock...'
I Need An Outdoor Spherical Display
'Usually a spherical display hovered in the centre...'
Worm Disrupts Physics Simulations Undetected For A Decade
'It diverts integers of the data, the fundamental message-units, so that they no longer agree.'
Muxcard Redditor's DIY Credit Card-Sized Computer
It's a computer, but just barely.
'Soft Assembly' Fashions That Fashion Themselves On The Wearer
'Clothes are no longer made from dead fibers of fixed color and texture that can approximate only crudely to the vagrant human figure...'
Orwell's Nightmare Of AI-Written Novels Comes To Pass
'Books were just a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces.'
ISS Plagued By Leak - Again!
'There were perhaps a dozen bladder-like objects in the tunnel...'
Ridiculous 'Ghost Murmur' Tech Still Science Fiction
'...it rears and spreads its fan. It can pick one man out of a crowd.'
