A research and development center for Daimler’s automated trucks and buses has opened in Portland, Oregon.
The facility at Daimler Trucks North America’s headquarters on Swan Island will aim to develop and fine tune autonomous driving technology, such as vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications and ADAS.
Daimler trucks does not believe that fully driverless commercial vehicles will enter series production in the near future, but does believe that the technology has numerous advantages as assistance systems, especially given that the pool of long-haul truck drivers continues to decrease.
The center will focus work on all aspects of development, testing, and validation necessary for high levels of automation. This includes software, sensors, machine learning and simulation, as well as the necessary adaptation of the base vehicle platform. Daimler Trucks is already planning real-world operation testing of platooning in the USA.
“Our approach to developing highly automated driving technology will draw on our proven expertise and long history of commercializing safe, reliable and fully integrated commercial vehicles,” said Roger Nielsen, president and CEO of Daimler Trucks North America. “We are again aiming for a fully integrated, proven Daimler solution that will provide the best tool for our customers’ needs.”
Nielsen continued, “We can accomplish this with a combination of vehicle road testing over millions of miles around the globe and advanced simulation. The global collaboration that takes place among research and development teams at Daimler extends to vans, buses and passenger cars, and each advance is a building block for the future of automated vehicles.”
By Illya Verpraet