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Tag: autonomous driving

Milestone for Autonomous Heavy-Duty Truck Commercialization

Posted on by David Priestman

Inceptio Technology, developer of autonomous driving technologies for heavy-duty trucks, announced that heavy-duty trucks powered by the Inceptio Autonomous Driving System and its Truck Navigate-on-Autopilot (T-NOA) capabilities have surpassed the significant milestone of 100 million kilometers in safe commercial operations, reinforcing Inceptio’s global leadership in the commercialization of autonomous trucks.

This achievement underscores how L3 and L2+ autonomous heavy-duty trucks have been successfully deployed across the line-haul logistics sector, including express delivery, less-than-truckload (LTL) transportation, as well as contract logistics. This also reflects the significant value that autonomous trucks offer logistics operators.

Accelerating the Adoption of Autonomous Trucks Across the Line-Haul Logistics Sector

Inceptio-powered trucks surpassed 50 million kilometers of safe commercial operations in August 2023. Building on this success, the company expanded the number of compatible truck models and surpassed the 100-million-kilometer mark by the end of April 2024.

Inceptio’s Autonomous Driving System covers 83% of China’s national highways connecting 7 major economic zones. Over the course of the 100 million kilometers, a total of 1,864 drivers safely used Inceptio-powered L3 and L2+ trucks in their daily operations.

Current customers include all the top logistics companies in China such as ZTO Express, YTO Express, STO Express, JD Logistics, and SF Express. Inceptio has also established an extensive footprint across the contract logistics segment including cold chain, automotive, beverages, and fast-moving consumer goods among many others, serving global brands like Budweiser and Nestlé. Inceptio’s autonomous driving technology caters to a diverse user base — from big logistics companies to small fleets and individual operators.

Inceptio has partnered with several leading Chinese truck manufacturers to pre-load mass produced trucks with the Inceptio Autonomous Driving System. These partnerships have expanded the number of trucks Inceptio powers and include popular models from Dongfeng, Sinotruk, Foton and Liuqi that are available in both 4×2 and 6×4 axle configurations to meet the diverse needs of the line-haul logistics sector.

Paving the Way for Greater Commercialization

Over the course of 100 million kilometers, Inceptio has demonstrated how its autonomous driving technology and its T-NOA capabilities are paving the way for greater commercial deployment across the line-haul logistics with safer, more efficient, and profitable operations.

The majority of the routes large express delivery companies in China use exceed 500 kilometers in length. Two drivers are commonly assigned to each traditional truck on these routes and take shifts driving in order to minimize fatigue and ensure safety when meeting tight shipping schedules. Inceptio’s solution makes driving much less physically and mentally exhausting as it handles more than 90% of the journey. Express delivery companies have been able to significantly reduce the number of drivers per truck and labour costs on these same routes as a result. On routes ranging from 500 to 1,200 kilometers, Inceptio has realized a direct shift from two drivers per truck to one, resulting in a significant 40% to 50% reduction in labor costs. On routes that exceed 1,200 kilometers where an autonomous truck relay model has been deployed, a traditional assignment of 6-8 drivers per three trucks has been reduced to 5. Likewise, a traditional assignment of 8-10 drivers per 4 trucks has been reduced to 6, resulting in a substantial decrease in labour costs and improved driver satisfaction.

The benefits are equally strong for contract logistic companies, both large and small. Huatai Logistics for example, a contract logistics company specializing in automotive parts transport on routes that average 1,500 kilometers, has seen its driver-to-truck ratio decrease from two to one by using Inceptio-powered trucks. Combined with a reduction of 3-5 liters in fuel consumption per 100 kilometers, total cost of ownership per kilometer decreased by 7-15%. The stellar safety record and enhanced driving comfort offered by autonomous trucks improved fleet-attendance rates significantly and increased monthly kilometers per truck by as much as 10%.

Some individual operators have also seen increases of 10-20% in monthly kilometers per truck and 2,500-5,500 RMB in monthly net income due to the fundamental improvement of safety and driving comfort offered by Inceptio-powered autonomous trucks. The fuel-saving benefits of autonomous trucks are particularly attractive for individual operators.

Leveraging Data Assets to Enhance Inceptio’s Autonomous Driving Technology

Inceptio leverages its powerful, data-driven R&D system to rapidly iterate and enhance its autonomous driving technology. This system, which incorporates accurate and efficient data capturing, automated cloud processing, advanced scenario mining, and automatic annotation, allows Inceptio to continuously refine its industry-leading T-NOA algorithm in real-time. This focus on real-world data is a key driver of Inceptio’s competitive edge in the autonomous driving technology landscape.

Julian Ma, founder and CEO of Inceptio Technology, commented, “Inceptio’s autonomous driving technology and its T-NOA capabilities are making significant progress in their commercialization, allowing us to rapidly surpass the 100-million-kilometer milestone after hitting 50 million kilometers only eight months ago. The impact our technology is having on the logistics industry is profound. The commercial deployment of Inceptio-powered autonomous trucks across the line-haul logistics sector is exciting, but what’s truly inspiring is the creativity and innovation our customers bring to the table. This user-driven approach is pushing the boundaries of how these autonomous trucks are used, opening up new ways to deploy our technology. The more data we gather, the faster we will be able to enhance our algorithms and improve our full-stack solution. We will continue working closely with our truck OEM partners to offer even greater safety, efficiency, and profitability to logistics customers.”

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Heavy-duty Autonomous Trucks with Autopilot

 

 

Heavy-duty Autonomous Trucks with Autopilot

Posted on by David Priestman

Inceptio Technology, one of China’s leading developer of autonomous driving technologies for heavy-duty trucks, today announced new agreements with major logistics and insurance partners, shared key data points from over 50 million kms of accident-free autonomous driving, and showcased the core technologies that power the Inceptio Autonomous Driving System’s Truck Navigate-on-Autopilot (T-NOA) capability.

At the Company’s second annual Tech Day in Shanghai, Inceptio announced new procurement and strategic collaboration agreements with major logistics companies STO Express (SZSE:2468), ZTO Freight and Deppon Express. As part of these deals, STO Express has ordered 500 Inceptio autonomous trucks jointly developed with Dongfeng Commercial Vehicle (DFCV) and ZTO Freight has ordered 200 Inceptio autonomous trucks jointly developed with Sinotruk. Inceptio also announced a cooperation agreement with China Pacific Insurance Co., Ltd. (CPIC) that aims to develop innovative new insurance products tailored to autonomous heavy-duty trucks.

During the event, Inceptio presented the results of two new joint studies confirming the significant safety and driver experience benefits enjoyed by operators of autonomous trucks:

• Inceptio and CPIC jointly released the industry’s first annual insurance data safety report, which found that Inceptio’s trucks perform 75-99% better than human-operated trucks across a range of safety indicators. In particular, Inceptio trucks registered just 0.1 collision warnings per 100 kilometers, which is 98% fewer than human-operated trucks.

• Inceptio and a team of academics published a pioneering report monitoring truck driver fatigue levels on 134 trips covering nearly 120,000 kilometers of commercial operations. The study found that Inceptio’s human safety operators experienced 35% less physiological fatigue and 11% less psychological fatigue than conventional truck drivers.

These study results demonstrate that Inceptio autonomous trucks are delivering on the four key value propositions they offer heavy-truck operators: superior safety, reduced labour costs, improved driver experiences, and better fuel efficiency. From 50 million kms of commercial operations, Inceptio’s partners have realized labour cost savings of 20-50% and fuel savings of 2-10%. Inceptio autonomous trucks come equipped with the T-NOA feature, and receive regular over-the-air (OTA) updates as the Inceptio Autonomous Driving System improves itself. Inceptio’s T-NOA feature offers 100% coverage of China’s line haul network and Inceptio already has commercial business covering 70% of that network. Three core elements enable this technology:

• End-to-end network with safety guardrails: the traditional autonomous driving software stack with discrete perception, prediction, planning, and control modules is being replaced by an end-to-end network that is both smart and reliable. Keys to this novel network are 1) guardrails to ensure the reliability and safety of network output; and 2) an efficient occupancy grid map-based representation with significantly reduced computing power and memory consumption.

• Inceptio Super Driver: a vast trove of real-world driving data has been used to train a customized large-language model dubbed TruckGPT, allowing Inceptio’s virtual intelligent driver to surpass human drivers’ decision-making ability in a wide range of scenarios.

• Inceptio Autonomous Truck Platform: includes a next-gen autonomous driving control unit (ADCU) designed for heavy-duty trucks and suitable for long-distance use in harsh conditions with weak wireless signals; software with unique features that significantly enhance development efficiency and can be adapted to new vehicle models in just 9-12 months; and truck electrical and electronic architecture (EEA) with new features including full modularity with decoupling of software and hardware, facilitating efficient upgrades.

Inceptio founder and CEO Julian Ma (pictured) said: “After another year of hard work and momentous achievements, we couldn’t be more excited to share Inceptio’s progress with the world. We are truly proud of the great strides we have made to commercialize our technology, making nearly 50,000 trips on 340 routes for more than 100 freight and logistics customers.

The new orders we announced today represent a huge vote of confidence from our valued partners STO Express, ZTO Freight, and Deppon Express, which have all experienced the benefits of our technology first-hand. And through our new alliance with CPIC, we are developing insurance solutions that will help accelerate the mass adoption of autonomous trucks even further. We look forward to delivering more mass-produced L3 autonomous trucks to our partners in the near future as we continue striving to make freight transport greener, safer, and more reliable.”

Accident-Free Trucking by Autonomous Driving

Posted on by David Priestman

Inceptio Technology, a Chinese developer of autonomous driving technologies for heavy-duty trucks, announced that the Inceptio Autonomous Driving System has powered more than 40 million kilometers of accident-free trucking on China’s highways. This latest milestone underlines the safety and reliability of Inceptio’s full-stack autonomous driving solution, as well as its accelerating commercial uptake.

Inceptio’s L3 autonomous trucks have been in commercial operation since late 2021. Working closely with two of China’s top OEMs, Dongfeng Commercial Vehicle and Sinotruk, Inceptio has shipped hundreds of mass-produced heavy-duty trucks designed from the ground up for full integration with the Inceptio Autonomous Driving System. Major customers including Budweiser, Nestlé, JD Logistics, and Deppon Express have deployed Inceptio trucks across a nationwide line-haul logistics network in China.

Inceptio’s solution brings significant benefits to every segment of the freight hauling ecosystem. The Company’s focus on mass production ensures that L3 autonomous trucks are sufficiently reliable for OEMs to produce and highly affordable for fleet operators to procure and operate, while its advanced technical features significantly increase driver safety and enable end-customers to receive goods at lower shipping costs.

“We are incredibly proud of the stellar performance record that Inceptio trucks have amassed over the past two years.” said Julian Ma, founder and CEO of Inceptio Technology. “Across 40 million kilometers of commercial operations, our Inceptio Autonomous Driving System has achieved a highly satisfactory on-time arrival rate for our customers with a perfect safety record. The Inceptio R&D team and the autonomous driving system itself are learning a tremendous amount from our fast-growing trove of operational data, and these insights will be invaluable as we speed up commercialization of our L3 solution and continue to hone our driverless solution. We look forward to sharing these achievements with industry partners as we explore opportunities to deploy our cutting-edge technology globally.”

Autonomous Driving System

Inceptio has successfully mass-produced a fully integrated solution to power the next generation of autonomous heavy-duty trucks. The Company’s focus on pre-loading its systems during the production process ensures significantly greater safety, reliability, durability, and regulatory compliance compared to an aftermarket approach.

With ‘safety first’ as its top design principle, Inceptio has collaborated with more than 50 industry partners to solve the most difficult challenges unique to the automation of heavy-duty trucks, including much greater size, weight, reaction distances, response times, and variations in vehicle parameters. Inceptio’s innovation achievements include:

World-leading algorithms
 Perception – Ultra long-range 3D sensing technology holds the industry record with an error rate of less than 5% at a distance of 1,000 meters
 Planning & Control – The core algorithm sets a performance benchmark for the industry with an average lateral control error within 5.5 cm
 Fuel efficiency – Algorithms optimize fuel economy at every level, resulting in 3-7% fuel savings over the most fuel-efficient human drivers

Full-stack software and hardware development
 Fully self-developed autonomous driving software
 Fully self-developed Autonomous Driving Control Unit with 262 KDMIPS + 256 TOPS of computing power
 The industry’s first fully redundant drive-by-wire chassis, including redundant steering, braking, and power supply systems
 Automotive-grade autonomous driving hardware kit offering triple-redundant sensor configuration and fully redundant computing unit
 An advanced human-machine interaction system with auditory, visual, and tactile feedback for human operators

Inceptio Technology is China’s leading developer of autonomous driving technologies for heavy-duty trucks. Its flagship technology is the Inceptio Autonomous Driving System, a proprietary full-stack solution. Inceptio partnered with leading OEMs to roll out the industry’s first mass-produced L3 autonomous trucks in late 2021. These trucks are operated by customers including Budweiser, Nestlé, JD Logistics, and Deppon Express across a nationwide line-haul logistics network in China. Inceptio is at the cutting edge of developing fully driverless trucks, and in 2022 became the first company to receive a public road-testing permit for driverless autonomous heavy-duty trucks in China.

First Fleet of Autonomous Carriers on Roads

Posted on by David Priestman

Clevon, a global autonomous delivery innovator, and Lithuania’s leading grocery chain IKI are bringing Europe’s first fleet of Autonomous Robot Carriers (ARCs) onto public roads. Three driverless carriers will offer daily commercial delivery services in the busy Vilnius city centre area and be operated by the last-mile transportation platform LastMile.

Orders will be collected at the IKI store on Mindaugas Street and delivered for free directly to customers’ homes in the city centre area. ARCs deliver the goods and have lockable compartments of different sizes, suitable for smaller and larger online grocery orders. The fleet of robots can deliver seven customer orders in a single run in the capital’s New Town and Old Town districts.

Neither congestion nor rain will interfere

Last year, LastMile and Clevon carried out a pilot project in the Vilnius suburban district of Balsiai – this was the first deployment of driverless delivery robots in Lithuania. In three months, the robot travelled around 2,000 km and showed good performance.

“The trial paid off with an overall score of 4.8 out of 5, and shoppers were keen to try the innovation. Meanwhile, we have seen that we can deliver goods even more efficiently and flexibly, with less environmental impact, thanks to electric motors. After a successful test, we are taking the next step – for the first time in Europe, as many as three autonomous carriers will be part of the traffic in city centre streets. We believe that these robots will give us a significant advantage in the delivery sector, as customers will receive their goods quickly, even in the city centre, and even during peak hours. Speed is becoming one of the most important criteria for shoppers when choosing a home delivery method – even 95% of our customers buy goods with delivery within a few hours,” says Tadas Norušaitis, CEO and co-founder of LastMile.

The pilot project also proved that robots can drive autonomously in a wide range of conditions – in the rain, on unpaved roads, in the snow, and in puddles after rain.

According to Nijolė Kvietkauskaitė, CEO of IKI Lietuva, the e-commerce market in Lithuania is very vibrant, so it is crucial always to be one step ahead. “Today’s shopper expects an even more seamless shopping experience – and we are helping to meet this expectation with bold technological innovations such as autonomous stores and autonomous cars that deliver purchases quickly, safely and conveniently. We can promise our shoppers that we will continue to lead the way in Lithuania by introducing retail innovations that will create an even better consumer experience,” said N. Kvietkauskaitė.

Clevon’s CEO, Sander Sebastian Agur, highlighted that the partnership with Rewe Group through IKI and LastMile is a major commercial achievement for Clevon: “Our team keeps proving that autonomous deliveries are here to stay, and we’re expanding our operations from single vehicles to fleets in Europe, the US, and in the Middle East region. Clevon was the first in Europe to get permission to operate driverless carriers on public roads in 2020. Now, we’re making history again by being the first to deploy a fleet of ARCs for commercial deliveries on Europe’s public roads, right here in Lithuania. This is just the beginning!”

Safety is a top priority

Starting on 27 June, the autonomous carriers will spend two months delivering shopping in a larger and much busier area than in the pilot project, driving through the streets of the capital’s city centre. To ensure maximum safety, the autonomous carriers will travel at a maximum speed of 25 km/h. They will be able to navigate the streets safely thanks to 360-degree cameras and special sensors. The carriers will be tele-supervised by teleoperators who monitor the driving in real-time.

On Tuesday, a public demo was carried out at the robotics launch event, where the autonomous carriers navigated a specially designed obstacle course without mistakes. The autonomous delivery will be completely free of charge. After ordering, customers will receive a text message telling them when the robot will arrive and a code that will unlock its door.

The LastMile platform currently has more than 300 000 registered users in Lithuania. They can choose products from more than 40 partner stores, with a total assortment of more than 30,000 products. Together with the start-up LastMile, the retail chain IKI is part of the international Rewe Group, which operates in 21 European countries and has around 380,000 employees. IKI has been operating in Lithuania since 1992. With 237 stores across Lithuania, IKI is one of the largest retail chains. It is one of the country’s largest employers, employing around 5,500 people.

Clevon introduced the next-generation autonomous robot carrier, CLEVON 1, as the first autonomous robot carrier in Europe to offer driverless delivery services on public roads, starting with DPD (part of LaPoste) and most recently working with customers including DHL Express Estonia in Tallinn, and IKI stores in Vilnius, Lithuania delivering groceries. On-demand delivery industries like grocery retailers, food and beverage businesses, and logistics providers partner with Clevon for safe, reliable, and customizable delivery solutions that are environmentally focused — all backed by a proven track record of 15 years of experience in robotics and automation technologies. In 2022, Clevon was founded after spinning off from Cleveron, the innovation leader in robotic click-and-collect solutions.

100 More Autonomous Trucks for Felixstowe

Posted on by David Priestman

Port of Felixstowe, part of the Hutchison Ports’ network, and Shanghai Westwell Technology Co. Ltd (Westwell) have signed an agreement for an additional 100 battery-powered autonomous Q-Trucks. The order follows a tender exercise and a thorough testing and evaluation process.

Hutchison Ports first introduced Westwell’s Q-Trucks at Terminal D in Thailand’s Laem Chabang Port in 2020. Fifteen Q-Trucks run in mixed mode operation with no separation from other traffic and have handled over 334,000 TEU (Twenty-feet Equivalent Unit) moves since their introduction.

Commenting on the agreement, Clemence Cheng, Chief Executive Officer of the Port of Felixstowe and Executive Director of Hutchison Ports, said:

“We are really excited to be working in partnership with Westwell to bring their ground-breaking and AI-driven technology to the Port of Felixstowe. Following the positive introduction of autonomous trucks at our terminal in Thailand and after thorough and successful testing in Felixstowe, we are rolling the system out in the U.K. The new trucks will increase the efficiency and operational consistency of our container handling as well as making a significant contribution to decarbonising operations at the port.”

Kenny Tan, Chairman of Westwell said:

“Hutchison Ports is a significant global partner for Westwell. As a world leading company in intelligent mass-logistics, Westwell, with its holistic solution in new energy autonomous driving, can help increase efficiency while reducing costs and delivering sustainable development options. The contract also marks a very important development of Westwell’s Ainergy Strategy to utilise AI applications to reduce energy consumption and facilitate decarbonisation. In this respect we will continue to explore opportunities to commercialise new developments with Hutchison Ports to equip global logistics for sustainable development.”

Delivery of the first autonomous trucks will commence in September 2023.

The new equipment is an essential element of the port’s decarbonisation strategy. Hutchison Ports has announced that its UK ports will achieve Scope 1 and Scope 2 net-zero by 2035 as part of the group’s global target established in line with the Science Based Targets initiative’s (SBTi) net-zero standard. In addition to the autonomous trucks, the port is investing in battery-powered conventional tractor units, replacing and re-engineering its yard cranes and purchasing electricity only from certified renewable sources.

The Port of Felixstowe is part of Freeport East, one of twelve Freeports being established in the UK. A key element of the Freeport East strategy is to boost innovation and investment. Following the signing ceremony for the autonomous trucks, Clemence Cheng and Kenny Tan held further discussions about bringing Westwell’s technology and expertise to the UK through the establishment of a new facility for Westwell within Freeport East.

The Autonomous Opportunity

Posted on by Keith McKinley

Stefan Spendrup of SOTI looks at the effects autonomous driving will have on the transport and logistics industry.

‘Big thinking’ articles on how to disrupt industries from retail to healthcare have been so prolific in recent years that you would be remiss in assuming we have moved forward from the digital transformation era. Rather, it is important to think of these transformations as the natural extension of a technologically driven world, in which companies are constantly adapting to meet
ever-evolving market demands and customer needs. As the pace of development in technological capabilities has increased, so too has companies’ access to technology. With this comes an expectation that companies remain current with the latest advancements.

Following the mobile-first era, the next stage in the evolution of digital disruption is the move toward robotics through the Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI.) Once companies have integrated a comprehensive mobility strategy within their operations, we find them increasingly turning to ‘what’s next’; solutions that will give them an even greater advantage against competitors and help them stay ahead of the field. Machine learning is poised to meet that market demand.

The transport and logistics (T&L) industry is at the forefront of this trend. An industry that may seem at first to be traditional and unchanged by technology over the past half century, has been among the earliest adopters of disruptive technology. Autonomous trucking is the next frontier for the transport industry. As larger enterprises move away from traditional practices, smaller organisations can follow and benefit from the mainstream acceptance of autonomous technology. This can be seen in areas such as:
■ Monitoring, information sharing and
exchange across remote devices
■ Management of mobile devices,
remotely, which can eventually be
applied to powering and controlling
autonomous devices
■ Remote support
■ Performance data and analysis

The numbers make the case. In the UK, 1.44 billion tonnes of goods were shipped via heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) in 2019, which is an increase of 2% when compared to the year before.
Global ecommerce sales are set to reach $5 trillion (£3.8 trillion) by 2021, driven largely by lowered consumer Stefan Spendrup looks at the effects autonomous driving will have on the transport and logistics industry. costs for online shopping and the ease of ordering online for everything from fruit to furniture. This trend is not likely to decline, especially as many are looking to limit in-store interactions in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. It will be difficult for transport and logistics companies to ignore the financial benefits of automation alone.

Evidential benefits of automation within the supply chain and operational practices already exist. This can be explicitly seen in Amazon’s famous robot warehouses. These IoT-enabled robotic devices can sift through packages faster than humans can. They can work anywhere and under pretty much any conditions, which is why they have been employed within the supply chain to speed up delivery and enhance the end-customer experience. The Amazon example indicates that as technology advances, adoption is likely to surge.

When turning our focus onto delivery services, we are seeing incredible interest in autonomous trucking, which has the potential to deliver faster, more predictable and more reliable service.
These benefits do not negate the valuable role humans will need to play in overseeing quality control, providing support and conducting data analytics functions to aid in further innovation. Prior to implementing full-scale autonomous trucking, shippers will need to ensure that the management and assessment of a connected fleet meets jurisdictional and federal legislation in addition to minimising cybersecurity risks. High levels of connectivity often translate into greater security risks, and companies will need to prioritise security to ensure systems are built with cyber resilience
capabilities and can respond quickly in the event of a cyber breach. Read the article here.

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